if it weren’t for my sliding mirror closet doors, my room would look much darker with only one lamp turned out.
that’s what i’m thinking about at 12:11am when i can’t sleep and have to work the morning shift.
dozens of friends have come and gone through my room, marveling at the 80s design and dusty gold colored edging that doesn’t match the accompanying oak trim along the walls in my house. they stare and stare at their reflections, our reflections. take pictures, post them on social media. watch the comments rake in. is this what we’ve come to?
i switched where my bed is in my room so that i don’t have to look into the mirror as i fall asleep; it felt too narcissistic and depressing. now i have my bookshelf in front of me and the little lamp that jumps off the mirror next to me. i have my fan blowing and my window open to the late autumn, early winter night air that i love.
i take deep breaths out of sight from the sliding doors that keep clothes i hardly ever wear safe. i sleep without it’s stare focused on me. i sleep without you on me, around me. i close my eyes, see the stars there, and sleep.

honey baby cherry pie
i've loved you since i caught your eye
but that was months and months ago
as winter passed i thought the same
in the spring out in the rain
with droplets running down my face i realized that
i'm lovesick
spend everyday and all night
waiting for you to see me
waiting for you to come through the door
waiting for you to come home
there's hearts coming out of me
bliss is surrounding me
lovesick
oh i'm lovesick

i don't write poetry anymore
i sit in my room, naked, feeling the curves of my body, searching for a sort of foreign peace within them
i study for exams, begin books i never finish, watch movies and stop halfway through, wear the same pants three days in a row, go a week without washing my hair
i lay down in the grass and watch the sky move
i laugh, i smile, i talk with friends
i feel alive driving in my car, letting the spring wind blow through my growing hair
i celebrate my mom's birthday, mother's day, memorial day
i go to baseball games and wear perfume
i play the only song i know on the piano when i should be practicing the flute
i stand in the shower and think too long and too hard
i pick fights with my dad because i can
i imagine my future, peering around the invisible bends in my path
(my apartment is beautiful, the one in my head, in case you were wondering)
i travel down 35W to see my family on their farms during harvest, the combines plowing through corn and leaving the fields bare for the snow to blanket in the winter
i sing loudly in church and pray only when i feel like there's something to pray about
i get lost in myself, trying to figure out who i am and where i'm going and what i want, the maze just never seems to end
i realize how much i'm starting to look like my mother-- my eyes, my cheeks, my nose are all bits and pieces that i got from her
i don't write poetry anymore
life has gotten too busy
life has gotten too hard

it's kind of crazy, the way people come into your life and change you.
when i met her i didn't think right off the bat,
"this girl is gonna be my best friend."
but time wore like it does and, like humans do, we grew closer.
a bond formed by a shared distaste for egg rolls, rap, and similar schedule.
so tonight when she called me, crying and breaking, something i could see and sense without her saying a word, i knew that
if this girl can trust me
then i can trust her.
for better or for worse.

you can't shake hands and greet people with a smile through a wall.

there's this boy in my class who can move through water like a raindrop through summer air, though his eyes are brown like the ground on which he walks.
he is an ocean with currents and waves and groundswells, all waiting to drag me up and send me crashing into him.
i've always been a good swimmer, was even on a team once, but his water is pushing and pulling and putting its hands on my waist and neck, tangling in my hair, telling me to trust him.
but how do i trust if i've never been in love before?
how do i give myself to someone and expect to get every penny back?
do i have the time (is he worth the time) to count every coin and weigh for counterfeits?
is part of falling in love taking the risk of not getting everything returned?
can i come out of love unchanged?
or is change a part of love?
i know that you took mythology as an elective last trimester because i saw you in the library and was trying not to stare so let me tell you the story of icarus.
he fell.
hard.
he had wings fashioned from wax and feather and did not heed his father's warnings, flying too close to the sun, touching salvation with his fingertips, only to fall into the unforgiving sea.
if i am icarus and you are the sea then who is the sun?
is love personified within the sun in our myth, something that you must fall away from in order to fall into?
is love the enemy or the goal, something to obtain?
is there a reward for the fall?
is the reward love?
do i need to love (or even merely like) in order to meet you face to face somewhere out of school, coffee maybe?
or a movie?
i hear there's a new one out about a girl afraid of love.
to be loved.
to give love.
to accept love.
does seven work for you?

with each day that slowly trickles by
i try not to give up on the hope of the
effervescent tomorrow