somewhere along the line i seriously messed up.
i wasn't supposed to feel this way about you for this long.
i was always scoffing at the hearts and chocolates that accompanied february 14,
telling my friends love didn't exist,
groaning when they suggested a romantic film to watch.
but somewhere in-between the sidelong glances and the furtive smiles,
i fell for you.
now i want the hearts and chocolates and february 14,
believe love could truly happen,
watch every romantic film from start to finish.
and i'm still falling.
and i can't stop.

i know it's late
and you've probably already
put down your book
turned off your bedside lamp
and fallen into a deep sleep
but for me it's not so easy
when you're my book
and my bedside lamp
and i can't put you down
or turn you off
because my thoughts can't move
one inch without bumping
into some memory of you
and i'd like to know
how you do it
how you so easily drift off
into a night filled with dreams
that aren't about me.

tonight i’ll leave
the window open
because the summer air
feels fresh and new,
full of possibility

tonight i’ll sleep
without the covers
because the blankets
weight down on me
like regret
and suffocate my skin

tonight i’ll listen
to my entire music collection
and laugh at
the songs that used to
make me cry,
the ones that
reminded me of you

tonight i’ll throw caution
to the wind
and tell that boy
that i love him
because you taught me
exactly
what love wasn’t

tonight i’ll stay up
until my eyes shut themselves
because i have nowhere
to be
in the morning light

tonight i’ll finally
discover myself

in math we learned about parallel lines,
always moving in sync,
always in the same direction,
but never crossing, never touching,
and i went home, crying,
cursing the universe for being so cruel,
the pure tragedy of the fact
rattling me to my bones
and into my soul.

but the next day,
we learned about perpendicular lines,
coming together and meeting in the middle,
but separating, parting ways,
never to see each other again,
and i sat there, silently fuming,
and asked my teacher
why things have to be like they are,
the one question she couldn’t answer.

i thought about you today.
i thought about you yesterday.
i'll think about you tomorrow, too,
and when i'm sitting in a crowded restaurant
with voices bouncing off the walls
and forks clinking against plates,
you'll be in my head.
it doesn't matter whether
i'm completely alone
or surrounded by friends,
you're always going to have a special place
there in the back of mind.

                      i hope you don't mind.

if i were a song
you'd sing me out at the top of your lungs
until your parents were banging on your door
telling you to turn it down.

if i were a centerfold
you'd tear me out
and pin me up on your wall.

if i were a steven spielberg film
you'd flip through the movie channels
and choose me to watch over all the others.

i could be the first thing you order off the menu,
the gel you use to style your hair,
the pen with which you write,
the book that you dog ear and leave notes in.

but i'm not.
so you don't.

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 could write a million different combinations
of letters and words, a thousand ways
to tell the world how i feel about you,
and you’d still have only the one.
you say i love you and all i feel is
a stabbing pain in the middle of my chest.
you see, i find it unfair that my words
blossom and expand and touch the sky,
and yours are as predictable as a hurricane,
noticeable from a thousand miles away.
i’m supposed to be in love but it feels like
the scales are tipped in my direction,
and what a peculiar thing to be worried about
when i have someone who would
take the stars out of the sky for me.

be wary of the boy whose smile
doesn’t reach his eyes;
of the boy who touches your body
before he touches any other part of you;
of the boy who’d rather stay in
than take you out
and show you off.
don’t fall for the boy who swears
up and down that he’s changed,
that he’s going to put your first,
that those other girls don’t mean a thing.
stay away from the boy who doesn’t
write you love letters
and slip them into your bag,
the boy who doesn’t lay
beneath the starlit sky with you,
the boy who doesn’t compliment
you when you’re at your worst,
the boy who doesn’t keep you on your toes
because these are the kinds
of things you deserve, plus more,
and you’re way too young to feel
heartbreak.

someday
the right boy will come along
the one who will
make your toes curl
the one who will
kiss all your bruises
and the tips of your fingers

he will pinpoint your beauty
and extract it from you
make it brighter
like the light switch on the wall

he will lift your lips
to his
look into your eyes
and say that he understands
that you're no longer alone

patience is a virtue
my dear

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 saw the clouds light up with color today,
a scene perfect for a picture,
but as i went back to capture the moment,
it had gone and passed,
a fleeting second in time.

most moments are like this,
here one minute and gone the next,
and it’s difficult to grab them
when we’re too busy looking to the future,
too busy imagining other possibilities.

you see, i don’t know what i’d have done
if you hadn’t been there,
and i hadn’t been there,
and the moment didn’t present itself,
wasn’t ripe for the picking.

(i think i could be falling in love with you.)

ever so slowly
winter folds into spring
who stretches its arms in the air
yawning after a much needed sleep.
the first flowers line my sidewalk
the birds sit side by side
on the telephone wire outside my window
and the grass grows
underneath the palms of my hands.
seasons change
and i love the warmth of the new sun
but my darling
i'm still cold without you.

(red rover red rover send billy right over)
it was that simple.
one tap on the shoulder
(tag you're it)
and he knew that he was mine,
two kids chasing each other
around the playground,
the most pure form of love.

i don't play those games anymore;
now i'm drinking until i can't see straight,
and he still doesn't know i love him;
now i'm smoking until my lungs burn,
and he still doesn't know i love him;
now i'm doing what he wants,
going where he wants,
pleasing him in any way he chooses,
and he still doesn't know that
i would do anything for him,
that i love him.

but the thing is,
he doesn't love me.

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.

baby girl,
when are you going to realize
that love isn't hiding
between the seats of his beat-down car;
it isn't sitting on the tips of his fingers
as they trail down your skin,
begging for more;
and you give in,
because maybe if you allow him
this one small favor,
he'll give you the love you want;
but that's not how it goes:
he tells you he likes you
but he needs to take things slow,
and you can physically feel
your heart shattering inside your chest
and the sound of
the sweet lie rolling off his tongue,
and as much as you know
love doesn't work that way,
you keep coming back for more;
baby girl,
i know you want to feel beautiful,
but love isn't created by two mouths connecting
in the darkness
or bare skin meeting bare skin,
and love doesn't present itself
whenever it's convenient for him.

some might see the ocean and how
he refuses to stop returning to the shore
no matter how many times
he’s pushed away.

i can only see the shore inviting the ocean
back in a countless number of times
despite how much she pushes him away,
despite his water washing away
bits and pieces of who she is,
giving her back things that don’t belong.

i understand that the ocean and shore
were created side by side for a reason,
but what i can’t seem to grasp
is why god created waves:
why did he make the shore immobile,
but allowed the sea to move freely,
and do as he pleases?

i’ll always hate myself for letting you
come rushing back in,
for how much you overwhelm me,
your waves crashing down on me,
when i know every day
you change as the tide does.

cornerstone (noun):
an important quality or feature
on which a particular thing depends
or is based.

you gave me the resolve
that i needed
and the strength
to believe i was worth it.
now my foundation
is crumbling in the spot
you once occupied.
slowly
my rock has turned
to dust
and i’m falling down
to the ground,
back to the place where
you found me
before you built me up,
made me taller than
the other buildings
surrounding me.

i don’t think anyone else
has the right tools
to make me solid again.

we are creatures of habit:
give me love
and i will return it
wholeheartedly,
but rip it out from under me
and i will go on
loving you
as if nothing was different.
we are creatures of habit
no matter how much
it tears my heart to shreds.

you could talk for hours,
until your last words
run into your first words,
until the sun
accidentally bumps into the moon,
until your eyelids
slowly drift down,
and i would still want to listen.

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.

what if i told you
that one look from you
can make my entire body
feel electric
can fill me with
such a beautiful misery

what if i told you
that you're the one
all my poems are about

you'd probably say
i was crazy

so i hold my tongue
even though my heart aches
and my fingers long
to intertwine with yours

“turn it up,” your friend said
that day in my car,
and you told him that
i don’t ever play my music loud,
like i was some sort of killjoy,
the rain on everyone’s parade;
like you were me and you knew why
i did the things that i did.

truth was,
i was so in love with you
that i wanted to hear every word,
every single breath that
came out of your mouth
without anything drowning you out;
i wanted the air to be filled with
beautiful conversation,
not with meaningless noise;
but you’d rather have listened to
someone else’s voice
than to the sound of mine.

i met a boy
who recently took me out,
and i could see the volume in his
dashboard turned all the way down,
and we talked and talked
without the need to fill the silence;
and now i know that i need someone
who will want to soak up my words
like they are sustenance,
who will sing along not to the radio
but to the notes and tones
in my voice.

someone who is
the complete opposite of you
in every aspect.

countless were the minutes we spent apart,
and long were the nights i swam in my own regret.
you opened my eyes the day you came
back in my life,
and it was the easiest thing in the world
to tell you i love you like nothing had changed,
even though mountains separate us,
rivers and canyons that i can’t leap across.
it hit me like a punch to the stomach,
and i could see what i couldn’t before,
tears in the rain that had finally let up.
i hope you know that you awaken parts of me
that have lain dormant for too long,
an indescribable feeling that travels up my spine
and back down again.
the turn of the tide,
the changing of the seasons,
our own aging,
all of these things are inevitable in life,
and i want you and me to be one of them.
i could swear that yesterday was september,
and now it’s suddenly october,
and i can’t waste another minute drowning
without you there to save me,
so i’ll take my thoughts and false preconceptions
and wash them down the drain,
and this time i won’t let another opportunity pass by.
we all have demons that live inside us,
but you help me to forget mine.

i was sixteen when i stopped
believing in fairy tales
and all the magic, the mystique,
faded from my innocent eyes.
i was not a princess
and prince charming wasn’t standing
at the bottom of my tower,
calling my name,
beckoning for me to let down my hair.
there was no knight in shining armor
to save me from the grips of evil
or sadness
or heartbreak
or tears—
all of these things were inevitable,
unavoidable,
and nobody came to kiss me
out of my deep sleep or
sweep me off my glass-slippered feet.
happy endings only existed
between the pages of story books,
dreams that never came true.
real life was tangible,
it grabbed me by the hands
and refused to let go.
(so tell me why i’m still hopelessly
searching for my ever after.)

i never understood how people could
fall in love and stay that way:
once i’m in, i’m banging down the doors
for someone to let me out.

just last week i was writing pretty words
about you, all for you,
how i wish you were by my side and
what i would give to make that wish true.

you’re mine now, and at first
i thought all the loose ends in my life
had finally been *******,
that all my problems would be resolved.

but now i know that those problems
lie in the chambers of my heart,
and nobody, not even you, not even me,
has the power to fix them.

don't tell me you love me
if you don't mean it, she said.
don't give me hope if
you're just going to dash it all away.
if you every plan on leaving, she said,
you might as well get it over with.
she threw down her defenses
and laid it all out on the line
because, she said,
even the ugly truth is much better
than the most beautiful lie.

san francisco’s known for its fog
and new york, its cities
and me, i was known for you

there was no me without you
perched at the end of my name
like a comma
incomplete and anticipatory

but every now and then
san francisco beckons in the sun

new york is more than just
one mass of blurred street signs
and the loud comings and goings
of nameless, faceless people

and i’m more than just
one guy who once upon a time
told me he loved me

i thought that if i did everything i could,
you would no longer occupy a corner
in the garden of my heart,
but now i see that it’s not my decision.

love is a two-way highway,
and you keep emerging like forget-me-nots
in the spring.

i tried digging my fingers into the soil
and ripping you out by your roots,
but all i accomplished was
dirtying my hands
and making even more of a mess
of myself.

this love is programmed to be perennial,
but trust me when i say
that i don’t need you or any other flower
to make my life more beautiful.

you watch as your best friend
comes and goes
with guys draped on her arm
like jewelry
interchangeable and temporary
dripping off of her skin
and clinging to her every word
men who fall to their knees
at her feet

when is it your turn

when will they follow your
trail of smoke
your irresistible smile
and heart full up with love

if i can teach you one thing
it’s that boys will
come and go
candy-coated in charm and
talking of the future
one with you in it
but at times it will feel like
you’re drowning
while they watch from the shore

trust me when i say
that you have to wade through
the shallow water first
in order to get to the deep end

wait for the guy
who sets your world on fire
the guy who ignites the spark
in the pit of your stomach
the guy for whom you’d sit
in the middle of a burning room
smiling
as the world continues on
around you

i remember how much
i despised coffee
when i was younger:
i’d wake up and smell it in the air,
sniff the contents of my father’s mug,
nose crinkling up at the scent,
and now it’s the only thing
waking me up in the morning,
keeping me up at night,
pushing me through the day.

this is growing up,
my mother tells me.

and i don’t mean to be,
but i’m surrounded by boys
with dimples that **** me slowly,
who think love lies
on the surface of my skin,
who know how to expertly manipulate,
and i’m stuck in an inescapable maze,
running on my wheel as fast as i can,
never going anywhere.

this is growing up,
i hear my mother’s voice
ringing in my ear.

you are the water spot
after the car has been sitting out
for too long
once the rain has ceased
and no matter how hard i try
you won't go away
you just keep fading
and then coming back

you are the telemarketer
the one who keeps calling
even when i hang up
every time

it's this love
the kind that makes my chest ache
and travels all the way
                                         d
                                            o
                                               w
                                                   n
                                                       to my fingers

so i'll continue
leaving my car out in the rain
picking up the phone
because i never want you to leave

she loved him
more than she loved air
so she forgot how to breathe;
she loved him
more than she loved water
so she drowned in it;
she loved him
even more than she loved herself
so much so
that she let herself go.

the thing about you is that
you take, take, take,
and never give a single thing
in return.   i thought maybe
i could change you and
make you into the kind of guy
who loves girls unconditionally,
but it's always the same
thing: me picking up my clothes
and my pride off the floor
after you've gotten what
you wanted from me,
and trying to fill myself
with the slightest hope that
you might change your ways
next time.   and believe me,
no matter what i tell myself,
there will be a next time.
(i couldn't exactly tell you why
i keep coming back for more.)

you can't quite seem
to put your finger on it.
and there doesn't seem to be
a name for it:

what do you call it when
he smiles
and you can physically feel
your heart dropping
into your stomach?

what do you call it when
he looks at you
and your breath catches
in your throat?

what do you call it when
he walks into a room
and nothing else
can draw your attention
away from the tall beautiful figure
making its way
through the door?

do you call it love?
or something else entirely?