I know that the clo-
ser I get to you, the hard-
er I fall apart.

i. when I was young, I was never complimented. I never felt good enough and it hurt and somewhere along the line I began complimenting everyone because I was never complimented and I never wanted anyone to hate themselves the way I did. just because I call a girl pretty does not mean I want in her pants.

ii. we live in a country where a gay poet spoke at obama's second inauguration, where five openly gay senators serve, where all fifty states have had a gay elected officer in some capacity, so if I were to be gay, what's the problem with a relatively unknown sixteen year old girl from a relatively unknown town in a relatively unknown state being gay?

iii. do you want me to be gay? do you want a better, more socially acceptable reason to make fun of me? is my weight not enough?

iv. I was taught the term fluidity by my best friend Alyssa. she firmly believes that sexuality is a spectrum, like many other things. I have a different view on sexuality because I see it as a spectrum, not something that's set in stone.

v. I like making people happy, I like completing people, I apologize a bit too frequently and I was taught how to accept people.

vi. just because I call a girl pretty does not mean I like her. just because I say a dog is cute does not mean I want with the dog. just because I say a painting is pretty does not mean I am going to **** the painting.

vii. aesthetic is a very important word.

viii. there are three kinds of attraction, aesthetic, romantic, and ******. just because you have one does not mean you have all three. just because I like the way something looks doesn't mean I am going to have *** with it.

ix. sexuality is an Identity. not a YOUdentity.

x. I'm not gay, but if I were, trust me, I wouldn't go for such a whiny little *****.

you are not as strong as you once were.
your defenses are weakening, and the troops are retreating.
but you stay planted.
you will not move until this war has been won.

you ache with hunger.
your body caves as all missionaries desert and you find yourself the only one armed.
but you stay planted.
you will not move until this war has been won.

you cry at night.
your mind has gone crazy and the journalists have taken your heroic story from the headlines.
but you stay planted.
you will not move until this war has been won.

you will not move until I love my self.

you used to be my light.
I wear sunglasses now.

you told me i was a creative light in a colourless world.
you told me i was resilient.
you told me i was beautiful.

and now, even though it's been hard,
i believe you.

you told me that God put you in my life,
and that knowing me was a blessing.
at the time, I thought that was a good thing.
but now, I know better.
I was your training for what was to come.
God put you in my life to **** me over.
and of the four people that I let in,
you were the only one that cared about my eating habits.
the other three didn't care,
and I honestly don't think you did either.

I like you.
like a whole bunch.
I like the way your fingers tap incessantly and the way your voice carries leagues across the blacktop and the way your lips curl up in that goofy smile.
but your heart is not mine and I don't need it I just want your hand to hold mine.
I just want to be yours.

13 months ago I experienced the biggest heartbreak I ever had.

12 months ago I was on a high.

11 months ago I made new friends.

10 months ago I did new things.

9 months ago I began writing more and more.

8 months ago I began a new school.

7 months ago I found a new best friend.

6 months ago I tried something different.

5 months ago I met a guy who understood.

4 months ago I began feeling cold.

3 months ago I felt nothing.

2 months ago I missed you.

1 month ago I cried every time I saw the color blue.

but now I realize that I am finally over you.

and oh how sweet it finally is.

my friends love sign language.
i always thought it a bit different and i never liked it.
until i learned the sign for worthless.
it's so pretty.
like a giant bow.
and even though it is literally worthless,
it's beautiful.
that sign teaches me that worthless things can be beautiful.
worthless things can be beautiful.
you can feel worthless,
but something about you is your redeeming quality.
everyone has something.
because worthless things can be beautiful.
everything has beauty.

I hate rain on Tuesdays.
Wednesdays are my least favorite days and if Tuesday's dark and gloomy how will Wednesday be?
but I love rain because the sky reminds me of my eyes and the feeling of wet drops on my skin is equivalent to your rough hands pulling me on an adventure and I want to adventure with you and I want you to take me along with you and some people compare their boys to skies and seas and flowers and moons but I will compare you to rain on Tuesdays because it all kinda spirals down but I want to hit rock bottom with you.

he doesn't add up.
he's like a nice problem with a twist.
like √-25.
it's perfect.
just too negative.
sadly, someone already tried to figure him out.
to add him up.
so they took imagination out and made him perfect.
and although at this part in my academic career I can properly reduce √-25,
i'd much rather leave you imperfect.

if you find a worm in your apple, you'll throw it away.
but there are still good parts.
the worm's only in one place.
some people are just too afraid to try the apple again.

we all have worms,
and the question is,
are you too afraid that you'll find mine?

if I was skinny,
could I please hold your hand?

you held galaxies in your hands.
blades cut on your thigh and you bled stars.
the beating of your heart sounded a lot like the birth of planets.
and you kissed the world goodbye, giving me only the moon to remember you by.

you were the fabric of time and I swear when she left I could feel you ripple.
the tips of your fingers felt as hot as the sun.
the stares were as blinding as a solar eclipse.
and you kissed the world goodbye, giving me only the moon to remember you by.

I still remember the moon.

he is a lover of brokenness.
he likes antiques,
collecting little fragments of things.
he hates breaking them,
so he finds brokenness,
fixes it up a little,
takes a few pieces and leaves.
he's already taken a bit of me,
and unless I shatter again,
he'll leave forever.

fingers- i landed my boat here, when i first met you. your fingers twirled together absentmindedly and they still do and i'm still get lost whenever i wander onto the dark beaches.
hands- i discovered these peninsulas when you pulled me along on your adventures after I landed on the beaches and they were so rough yet so wonderful and i honestly want to get lost here more often.
wrists- i found these a bit more on the mainland, still flanked by water and they were so narrow that i was afraid i would fall off into the water and i wonder how those thick colorful bracelets stay on.
cheeks- one day i wanted to go on a hike so i decided to climb up these steep mountains and whenever something beautiful sailed by you these beautiful red begonias popped up and i'm a little upset that i didn't make them pop up but i'm glad they didn't bloom around me because i got to see the natural red hills and i got to love them.

but i made a mistake because i never went south and maybe i would have gotten lost somewhere else more beautiful but if i went south, i wouldn't have found the beautiful pools that some call your eyes and that would've been the real loss.

I love your eyes.
I've gotten attached to them.

do you not realize
how amazing you are? how
wonderful you are?

normal girls call you up at midnight needing *** but i, i just need you.
i don't need ***.
that is beyond me.
i am too fat, too ugly, too unmarried for ***.
and you have a purity ring etched in your heart.
i just need you.

i am guilty of looking at your lips in the middle of class.
wondering who else has looked at them.
wondering if they've wanted to kiss them.
if they've wanted to be yours.
i wanna be yours.
i am addicted to 8:35 on weeknights sneaking away during act 2.
i am addicted to choco-coffee from the best **** barista in town.
i am addicted to phone tag and craisins.
i am addicted to your lips.

how come i only look
pretty in a stupid dress?

extraño tu.
extraño tu todos los días.
él no es lo suficientemente bueno a recoloco ella.
ella no fue lo bueno.
pero él no es lo suficientemente bueno.
no soy lo suficientemente bueno.
extraño tu.

i had forgotten your laugh.
i had forgotten your smile.
i had forgotten your eyes.
i had forgotten the way you whispered on the phone.
i had forgotten the way you hated your thigh.
i had forgotten Sam and Alex.
i had forgotten how you giggled when i cried.
i had forgotten why you giggled when i cried.
i had forgotten the nights i didn't like myself.
i had forgotten your favorite color.
i had forgotten how big your ambitions were.
i had forgotten it all.
but i will never forget the color of your hair.

i can't breathe without
suffering from the fear of
drowning in the air.
i am an underwater
creature and this air
is poisonous to my lack
of lungs. i need you.
you are the water in this
stale air. i need you.
you take away my fear of
breathing. with you i can breathe.
-----
i do not know why
you are not like air to me.
why are you like my
water? you are just a boy
and i am just an
underwater creature. i am not
worthy of you at-
tention. i don't deserve to
breathe you everyday.
i wish you were the air so
you would be like my poison.

him-                                                                                her-
smug                                                                              content
artist                                                                               writer
excited                                                                            lazy
music maker                                                                  music listener
caring                                                                             apathetic
midnight kisses                                                              midnight calls
skipped practices                                                           skipped dates
large appetite                                                                 large body
small body                                                                     small appetite
the nbhd                                                                        the neighbourhood
instagram                                                                      youtube
mine                                                                               hers

when i met you the first time, i got chills.
i was suddenly cold.
i learned more about you and fell.
pretty hard.
the more i talked to you, the colder i felt.
i began seeing snowflakes in your eyes and flurries on your skin.
your snow buried me.
the white fluffy flakes that were directly from your heart entered my lungs and i drowned in you.
then, it began storming.
hard.
blizzards blew across the expanse of your sunken caves that laid between two sharp mountains.
i was snowed in for three months without love or hope or happiness.
the sun that i compare him to came out and melted you.
i'm still afraid of the cold.

i love you*
it took a year to realize that

they sat at the second table from the left.
four girls; one with curly hair to her knees, one with a heart for running, and two who love basketball.
I tried to fit in.
I failed.
a poet is not a dancer.
a poet is not a runner.
a poet is not a basketball player.
a poet is a poet.
I hated this table.
it gave me chills.
I walk past the table, because they cannot hurt what isn't in their reach.

dear ---
I am not pretty.
I am not smart.
I am not worth it.
I am not poetic.
I am not perfect.
I am not good enough.
******* for making me feel like I was.

I.
you begin growing flowers
in a little garden,
in a *** on the kitchen windowsill,
in your hands,
in his veins,
in his heart,
in his head,
because you want him
only to think pretty little perfect thoughts.
you say that the garden
gives you something to do,
but I know that’s all he is to you.
just something to do.
just someone to make perfect.
you want to sit by
his bed and make sure that he gets
the perfect amount of
sun and
light and
water and
soil and
love and
nourishment and
I don’t know why
you and he don’t
break up; why he hasn’t
broken up with you
yet. you just want
to fix him.
that is not love

II.

you start
drinking coffee
more and
more and the little blue and pink striped coffee mug you use acquires
more and
more stains as you stay up past midnight
more and
more and “oh just one
more hour, I’ll go to bed.”
but that is
a lie.
it’s all a lie
my dear.
you say that the
coffee gives you energy,
but you said that about him
and you aren’t getting drunk on him
at 1 in the morning. you’ve been obsessing over him
and pretending that you do care, that you really love him.
you don’t love him,
you never have loved him.
you’re only using him
for your own selfish needs and you treat him
like the keurig you keep in your small apartment.
you’re with him because he
makes you feel young, he gives energy.
that is not love.

III.

you begin making hats
for your friends and
for your family and
for your colleagues and
for the **** addict two doors away and
for the homeless man you pass every day.
you say the hats occupy you,
but that's what you use him for.
you sit there with your
knitting needles
at his side fixing up his
"loose ends"
and then you give him away
to the world.
he is not a hat.
you cannot pick which perfect parts show
and make sure he is fixed before the world
sees him. he is
not a project to keep
you busy.
you only keep him so
you can make him perfect.
that is not love.

IV.

i begin telling you
that you are toxic for him,
you're ruining him,
you're making him
believe that since brokenness courses through him
he needs help. you cannot make him
hate him-
self even more than he does. you will ruin him
for everyone. i know you try to fix him
but you are breaking him.
he is naïve and he thinks there is something wrong with him
because you want to help him.
you make him
feel inferior by treating him
as such.
he is not a garden that you can nourish.
he is not a cup of coffee that you can use.
he is not a hat that you can make perfect.
he is a human.
treat him as such.
man, if i were lucky enough to be his,
he would not be treated inanimately.
he is a person.
love is not the same as fixing someone.
a romantic is not the same as a repairman.
your kind of love is not the same as my kind of love.
YOU DON’T LOVE HIM!!!
we all see how toxic you are
we all know what this love is doing to him.
you are so flawed in thinking
that you are actually helping him
live a better life. you are
not helping this boy
one bit.
you are harmful.
but we all knew this from the beginning.
you did this to me.
i was like a candle that
you decided
you could light whenever it benefitted
you. whenever
you needed me to be lit,
you would give me a fire, give me a spark. but as soon as
you were done with me,
you would put me out.
you cannot treat people the way
you do.
you cannot make them feel as worthless as
you do.
this love between you and he
is very toxic. you need
to fix yourself
and stop trying to fix him.
you’ve hurt dozens by
seeing them as
objects
and not as
people.

all I'll remember from this April

is you

leaving me.

just in case you forget how to breathe, I would pump my oxygen into your lungs.

just in case you forget how to love yourself, I would kiss every bruised inch of skin on your body.

just in case you forget how to eat, I would spoon feed you myself.

just in case you forget how to live, I would give up my life for you.

falling in love with you was like making tea on a hot summer day; useless but kinda okay because tea makes everything better.

you were like a massive piece of cake that was drizzled with arsenic because once someone could peel away the poisonous parts you were pretty **** tasty.

you didn't understand my disorders and I helped you with yours, and that's the worst.

**** Emma. really, **** Emma because she's the one who got you addicted.

you're a *** addict and a drug addict and I do not want you and I do not need you and I do not love you.

but I miss you.

I don't know why
I keep you around.
you beat me down
and make me cry.
but when you try
to help me out
I have no doubt
you should be mine.
when I'm with you
I know how to be
and nothing can hurt.
I'm not blue,
nothing's too heavy,
and you'll never break my heart.

as the night falls quiet and the moon
is covered up by the lies she told,
you pace. you sit in your room, crying
because where is she now? she said she’d
never leave, but where is she now? as
the night grows empty, so does your heart.

step one: find someone with the correct qualifications. make sure he has taken the correct courses and has credentials.
step two: if your lawyer has a double major in medicine, run away.
step three: he is a person, not a house. do not treat him as such. don’t begin to use his bones as beams and his heart as a generator.
step four: you are a person, and just because you have legal issues doesn’t take away from that statement. you are a person, not a project. make sure your lawyer realizes this too.
step five: if he tries to fix you, run away. go back to step one and pay extra attention to step two.
step six: doctors are bad news. stay away from them at all costs, even if they are a good lawyer too.
step seven: don’t try to fix him either, even if he needs the help. he needs the help, but he’ll never actually accept it.
step eight: he’s just a boy. not an angel, not a superhero, not a saviour, not a lawyer, not a doctor, not a repairman.
step nine: he is not a song. don’t make him a song. he is not a song. don’t compare him to “broken crown” by mumford and sons or “ice” by lights.
step ten: if you need legal advice, a professional works but ultimately a convicted girl is the best advice.
step eleven: whatever you do, don’t hurt him because you’re afraid of being hurt.
step twelve: don’t give him your sharps. save yourself. you don’t need him.
step thirteen: don’t **** yourself because he doesn’t care.
step fourteen: he cares.

he cuts into my skin
like the knife he took
away from me.

he promised me
he'd never leave.
where is he now?

I feel so empty
and now I feel
like living my last day.

if this ship will sink,
i would rather you be at
fault than it be mine.
i would rather you be on
board with me than sat
at the docks with some other
lady trying to
sell her body to you. but
with you i feel that
we are capable of great
things; babe, we'll never go down.

at age three, my preschool teacher told me,
"Some ships are admired for their beauty,
and such ships will sink.
Ships that are functional,
however,
will never be admired as the other ships are.
I think you have the perfect mix of
beauty and functionality."
since age three,
both my beauty and functionality
have dropped dramatically to depths never explored
by this species.
i am a mess,
too much hate runs through these veins
and somehow i am a very angry person.
but i have a talent very few possess.
i have vision.
not beauty.
not functionality.
vision.
i can see things in ways they have not been construed.
i look at a passage and see twenty different ways to interpret it.
i am a master of metaphors.
i see a flower and see what it was and what it is and what it will be.
but what happens to the ship that is not sat at docks being fawned over,
or the ship that is not the fastest?
what happens to the ship that can see the best possible path?
does it get to its destination quicker?
or does it go off track because of the amazing beauty it's chasing.
what happens to such ships?

did you really like me?*
you left me. you left

the clouds were
troubling
her again.
but like a
roof over
her head, he
makes the clouds
disappear.
but caves and
roofs and struct-
ures and build-
kings collapse
even the
sturdiest
structures will
break. even
you will break.
but breaking,
at times, is
positive.
because when
you break, you
find those who
truly care
about you.
I care abo-
ut you dear.
darling, you
seem so strong.
but when will
the pressure
get to be
too heavy
for you? when
you break, I
wanna be
there. I wish
to see your
fragile bones
snap under
the pressure
that has been
accumu-
lating for
years. almost
as an "i-
told-you-so."
you will break.
I wanna
watch you snap
and break and
crumble. you
will, I know
you will. ev-
entual-
ly. and I
will be there
to watch and
to help. even
though I want
to see you
break, I don't
want you to
break. I just
need to know
you feel in-
side. do you
have a heart?
do you feel
things? I need
to see you
break; I need
to have proof.

it is 19:43 and I think of how you hate military time and how I always have to change it myself for you when you ask the time.

"recover holly!" you always say, but I think to last night when you handed me a blade. sure, it was was for styrofoam cutting and not skin cutting, but for a guy who remembers everything else so well, you seemed to forget that I would be triggered .

you never allow me to help you, and it hurts because everyone always underestimates what I'm capable of and what I can do and I thought you were different.

you assure me that my weight doesn't matter, but look how you spin Natalie and Alayna around. why can I not be skinny enough to fly in your arms?

I'll probably send this to Madison later, not you though. you're my inspiration, you help so much. but you hate poetry and my creative outlet is lesser than yours.

I feel as if I would be truly sad if you moved next year, but you wouldn't miss me.

and what will you do if I get better? you are nothing more than a 911 operator; you'll save me and then leave.

oh dear, I feel like I don't need you.

but I do.

I need you because you get me and I ******* hate how much you understand me. I wish you were a dumb boy.

I need you because no one else ******* cares about me anymore.

and no, I don't 'like' you. I just can't ******* lose my life line.

I will not love.
I trust that I will not make that mistake again.
I will not mistake your care and attention as affection.
I will not cling.
I will not give into you.
I will not change for you.
But man, loving you feels amazing.

oh darling, even
the strongest shelters collapse.
even you will break.

sometimes disappearing sounds appealing.
others I need to be included

the problem is I can't.
I can't trust anyone.
I have issues going across railroad tracks without making sure once, twice, three times that a train isn't coming.
when I muster up courage to look in a full body mirror, which isn't often, I check my reflection five times to make sure a scar isn't visible.
when I read ten word poems, I count each and every word seven times.
so why would I trust him when there is no proof to check nine times?

I throw you away
and then pick you back up

I do not wish for death.
I wish for life.