is deciding
that your sadness
will no longer
speak for you.

is eating Ritz crackers
at 2 am
while flipping through your
Pokemon card collection.

I used to wish mine were
green - like the forests -
or blue - like the oceans -
or grey - like my grandfather's.

It wasn't until
you told me
there was gold
- like the earth -
in my irises,
that I started
to believe.

(Maybe, just maybe,
there's beauty in me after all.)

I will grow
with
or without
you.

somehow hurts worse than a breakup.

I knew I wanted to live
when I started wearing
my seatbelt again.

I'm five feet of
stubborn kindness
and crippling self-doubt
and barely-controlled havoc.

That's more than enough to knock down
your six feet
of self-proclaimed
douchery.

There is an ache.
Something once there,
now, gone.

No matter how put-together
my reality becomes,
something feels out of place.
Missing.

I think it's that fact that - in this life at least -
I won't get to meet
you.

is a four-letter word
made of sunshine and *******
used to teach kids
against taking
their own
lives.

I say
it's a concept.
Like time
or falling in love
and it traps your mind
into thinking you still have
some fight left.

(The truth is, I'm not hopeful,
I'm just stubborn.)

There once was a wall in her heart
that she allowed him to take apart.
It took him forever
and he gave up whenever
he realized this wasn't so smart.

How? You ask me so.
Well, it does lie between the days
so you have the rest
of the week to go.

Breakups happen on this dreaded day,
when your partner decides you're through.
When you're too hungover to care too much,
for last night you tried something new.

You can lose your job on a Wednesday,
after effort and commute and time.
You can be slapped together with a parking ticket
and forced to pay a fine.

You might lay in bed on this day,
wondering what's left to come.
You might want to hide in your covers
because you know you did something dumb.

I'll be real: I hate Wednesdays.
But why? You ask? I could've sworn...
Ah! Yes. I remember now.
T'was a Wednesday when
I was born.

Words are permanent.

I was once told
that I'm an
"embarrassment"
and now,
that's all I can think
when I get excited
in public.

(I was also once told
that I'm a
"talented writer"
and now,
here I am
writing dumb poems
for my soul.)

keep

*******


g o i n g.

feels like static
at the end of a long day.
Or ice in your veins
when you want to run away.

It's everything,
overwhelming,
when you've got **** to do.

It's nothing
and only comes
when you're alone
and it's just you.

Watch where you ******* aim, why don't'cha?
You can really hurt someone with that bow-and-arrow of yours!

Idiot.

I used to watch
the constellations
glued across my bedroom ceiling
and think "Someday,"
my name will be written
across the galaxies.

Now,
I see the stars light up outside
and think "****.
They cut my power again."

Our story is a love letter.
As long as I live,
I will write to you.

The loneliness
is getting
louder.

Maybe I can't sleep anymore
because my body
is afraid
of not waking up.

I have few places
where I feel safe.

My car, passing through city stoplights
long after everyone has gone to bed.

A small shoe store with a big history,
when it's slow and the boss isn't there to kick me out.

My phone, when I have time
to **** around and pull up Internet memes.

And the thought
of a Someday
with you.

She falls in love wherever she goes
and loves people from their heads to their toes.
She'll love you to death, from beginning to end,
but the fact of it is, she can't stay
"just friends."

to myself
will begin with
silence.

Because I don't know
if I love myself
just yet.

It will take a chisel
to chip away at the detailed designs,
and a hammer
to crack through the carefully laid bricks,
and a wrecking ball
to bust open the stone-cold fence
of doubt and insecurity
I got wall-to-wall around my soul.

After that, you'll need a passcode
and a fingerprint.

You ain't getting in, *****.