they make moving on sound so easy
but all i want to do is grieve for you
why do i try so hard but can't forget you

everything brings of memories
they are so hard to forget
and too precious to let go of

i can smile no longer for you're loss
how can i smile when my world is falling apart
why should i smile if everything i ever smiled for is gone

i'm craving to hear your voice one more time
the have such a melody sooth me once more
it pains me that i will never hear such an angel again

you were like a full moon on a lonely night
all i wanted to do is admire you're light
all i wanted to do was be on the moon

maybe when my grief fades in the future
and the pain of your death doesn't hurt as fresh
i can say, goodbye my love

daddy used to call me his little warrior
his little princess
his little mulan

princesses have happy endings
so i will have mine too
right?

mulan finds the love of her life
she saves her homeland
my best friend just fell in love with someone else

i stare at my reflection
showing who i am inside
through my smiling facade
all i see is condensed sadness
i see tears

today we learned about the real mulan
she killed herself

i hold a knife
i am my father's princess
but princesses don't all get happy endings

steel meets flesh
blood meets earth

my melody is the very color of the paint
that fills the sky with blue
my lyrics are the air that i breath
as the winds flow along with beauty
and my voice is the one star in the sky
standing out to brighten a lonely night

i walk the same path every day
yet i can never find my home
i'm with the same group every day
yet i am always alone
i sing this lonely song
to find myself high or low
so i pray to god
that he will send me my angel

i let you go,
made you hate me.
your beauty and kindness
why couldn't i see
that you love me so much
but i don't know why
now that you're gone
it's my turn to cry

my hair is as dark as the days when i believed that nobody would ever love me

my eyes are as deep as the water i tried to drown in

my lips are as red as the blood that spilled from my wrist

my skin kissed by the summer sun i always hated

slowly

i became my own nightmare

they say no one dies alone
and it's cruel
but once i pass
i will leave a hole in my sister's heart
once my sadness ends
her sadness will begin
forever

when i thought
he was the one just for me
but then i saw
him and i just weren't a we
the heart break
when i was young
was enough
to hurt me until now
and now i'm scared
that the same thing will happen again
with you

i never liked pain
yet i fell in love with it

when i poured out my heart
and got pain in return
i loved too deep
god, i never learn
i cry my tears forever
to no one's concern
and i am betrayed
the angry pain that burns

always scared to
but i realized i did it
before i ever thought this through
i don't know how to feel
accomplished or afraid
because i think i fell to hard
for you
before i jumped
i should have gotten a parachute

poetry isn't written by people who are depressed
it is written by people who have found art in their emotions

i love the cold rain
because when it is raining
no one knows you cry

i want to write more poetry but the words refuse to leave
i'm terrified that they might become what used to make me pleased

i believed every scribble i drew on paper in pen was art
"it's my poetry, who cares about verse, form, rhythm, and heart?"

i assigned too much meaning to all the juvenile words
instead of searching for the words that are ones worth working for

i continuously thought that my first drafts were perfection
always finished with each one after being newly written

i labeled meaningless writing as simply ambiguous
to call my work poetry was such a misdiagnosis

her skin is gleaming and gold
as precious as her smile
her eyes are brown with specks of green
like the first leaves of spring
she radiates growth
like mother nature herself
she is an everlasting rose
vibrant and sweet

sadness is my closest friend
even though we never meet
he's somehow always there for me
when i'm fighting through defeat
his soothing tones drive me close
to my insanity
and although i don't call him
he still waits for me

she's a beauty
the midnight of stars with a stream of galaxy
she's breathtaking
as breathtaking as the shower of gold
she's a mystery
like the deep waters, dark and dangerous
she's platinum
precious that doesn't rust away

Trade me some beauty,
and I will give you silver skies.
Speckled with ***** gaze,
of stars,
like silver glitter spilled in a river,
yet in a world above,
it seems not tainted by life,
only a still galaxy
of perfection.

Trade me some beauty,
and I will give you silver skies,
so you can gaze into a different world,
and start your own dreams.

isolation's comforting; none here to object

when you needed me
i skipped class for you
i skipped sleep for you

when i needed you
you skipped over me

some words leave a bitter taste

they taste like strong, lingering coffee
at first pleasant, but eventually unbearable

they taste like inhaled cigarette smoke
something never forgotten
but a significant part of childhood

they taste like hiraeth
longing for a life from once before
one without a missing piece

father is a bitter word

somewhere in my heart,
there might be a little love,
that's shoved behind locked cabinets,
labeled 'pain',
it's shut in a safe,
with the combination of 'regret',
it's in my library of secrets,
along with 'mistakes', 'happiness', and 'tears',
it's hidden behind the muscles of steel,
that keep my heart pounding,
every time i think about this forbidden word,
one day,
if i ever get past the bronze edge of my tongue,
i might be able to think about,
"love".

my hair flows
like the delicate music
that keeps the suicidal thoughts at bay

i'm immediately consumed
by the darkness around me
and i look for an escape
behind me is the light outside
but i can barely reach it
it's so close
but running away
i can only move forward
into the unknown
and i already regret it

you are like the sun
i might be flying too high
wanting you
you are further than i can reach
but close enough to hurt me
i can feel you melting my wax as
i come closer longingly
ignorant of my own doom
because i only realized
how little i knew you
so as i make a last attempt
my own wings tear apart
and i'm left
falling alone

i can open my mouth
but never speak my heart

i write broken poetry
yet it never  sounds like art

i try to face my problems
but i can never start

there's a war in my chest
and it's tearing me apart

my tears mark the place
where i fell down
and could never get up again

tell me to stop getting distracted
because it's so easy for you to say that
tell me to stop binge eating
because it's so easy for you to say that
tell me to stop overthinking things
because it's so easy for you to say that
tell me to stop getting scared
because it's so easy for you to say that
it's like you think i want to be like this
if i could stop then i would
it's harder than it seems
when i think about the word stop
the only think i can think about it to stop living

the last time i said thank you to you
i said thank you for nothing

but i can thank you now
thank you for teaching me what not to be

you were the brightest star
that's why i saw you
but as i got closer
i realized that your glow was just a cover up
to the fact
that you were never as beautiful
i was a little too close
for my own good
and i had to let you go
i could never find you in the night sky after that

i reached the sky
and fell down right after
but nobody cared
i can hear the stars' laughter

i'm just a tissue to you
i'm there for you to soak up your tears
but as soon as i tear
you can throw me away

to be a writer
you have to be bored
and trap yourself in your own mind
you have to think your way out of the box you are locked in
so you write
you become someone else
someone more intelligent
more capable
ink flows with their blood
as you become them
you feel their pain
and become addicted to it
so you give them some more
and it becomes too much for you to handle
but you can't stop
so you share it
share it with other people who absorb the pain like drugs
who are addicted like alcoholics
as you write
you begin to find yourself
you find that you really are addicted
and how unhealthy it is
so you try to make it better
you started writing as a way to escape
but now it's your own cage that you painted
you really do make it better
it's not as satisfying as the pain
but you are free
and as you drift off
finally out of your enclosure
you experience withdrawals
you unconsciously pick up our pen and journal
and begin scribbling again
it's simply a nesting doll of boxes that you can't escape
and then once you realize
that writing is the key to this endless loop of relief and pain
and you accept it
that's when you become a writer

the first time an online boy confessed to me
it scared me
how he read between the banter to find something that wasn't there and i
was blind to it
i thought we could continue like this forever
static
and nothing would change
because change is scary
when this boy told me he liked me
i remembered that he was a person
not just some account mirroring my words, devoid of feeling
free from extracting meaning from nothing
like people so often do

perhaps, while i talked to him, i forgot i was a person too
people are scary
and to remember that i am a person is to remember that i have parts of myself that i am terrified of
talking to this online boy
i wasn't burdened by that
i was everything aspirational
cool, witty, silly but just the right amount to be respected

i've talked to more online people since
and i've had more boys confess to me since
it gets easier but it never gets less sad
i had never learned to lower my expectations and remember that these online people.... are people

at some point, i came to expect it
rip the bandaid off early
i don't care if it hurts

well, i do care if it hurts
but i never remember that until i am hurt

i dig for any information about these people
i'm sorry i am so impulsive but i cannot stand to continue loving myself and loving the people i talk to
knowing that some day, i cannot

so i see it
i see their full name
i see that they're a college student at a state university only a few hours from me
i see that they have lives outside of direct messages
i see that they have a face
they're not bad looking
they look pretty nice, in fact
but i want to forget it

people are scary
when you see a friend's face for the first time
it reminds you that they're a person
and that
is the saddest feeling in the world

goodbyes are hard to say
because we never know when it is our last

your breathy voice whispers
it's last message
"final farewell"--
and before we know it
you've committed to something
that would scar us

your angelic face fade
into death forever
leaving me in bitter tears
because we never treated you right
like a human

seeing you lifeless
a crushed rose with poison
in you wilted stem
tears my heart into broken glass
tunes my words into broken blues
turns my writing into broken poetry
and all i can think about is

my sorrow
i'm speaking for everyone
when i say
i'm sorry that it's our fault
such an angel has left the earth
that you were driven to your pain
leaving us to all cry for you
knowing we would never see you

i speak for everyone when i say
sorry
we love you--

KIM JONGHYUN

i can't stand to hear your voice
because another whispers
in the safe conceals of a shadow
you other meaning
as easily interpreted as the looks
of your face that speaks otherwise
the way you always look left to walk right
or look happy when you're angry
luring me closer and closer
revealing everything once i'm too close to back away
the eclipse speaks as though i am some monster
too late
i realized this twilight's voice was my own

Emory Austin once said
Sometimes there won't be
a song in your heart
Sing it anyways
but what if  i'm not given
the voice
to sing it?

the only lust i have
is the want of something new
the beauty of the world that is buried
behind shallow thoughts of man
i wish to see something i can share
my feelings with
i hope to see something
no one has ever seen before
the only lust i have
is wanderlust

was the blackest night i could remember
i didn't have the voices of angels to sooth me
demons took charge that night
i feel bright blue eyes settling on my
as piercing as the dark scythe he held
another painted white creeped out
their faces smiling with the smiles i did not want to see
i try to tell myself it will be okay
but in my heart i knew it wasn't
i pray as they come closer
their prescence tighten my throat and don't allow me to speak the words i needed
i clutch blankets as a shield
but i could feel my former protection wrap around me like the chains coming up from hell
i scream
with a scream i hope was not the voice of him
i imagine the tears streaming out like the phlegethon burning the demons
but it only gives them like
arms catch me
it takes me a moment to realize that they were neither angels or demons
but soothing arms that actually cared about me
i surfaced out of my run away imagination
it is no longer black
and no demon is no longer there
but i was so sure they were still watching me

if only you could ever know what you've done to me

ink stained my skin from where i wrote hate letters to myself

scars line my skin from where i tried to cut out everything i hated about myself

fat clings on my bones for dear life because i tried to starve it off

pain still flows along with my blood, traveling from my mind to my heart

if only it could leave with all the blood i tried to lose

behind monochrome layers of fog,
clouds,
ice,
are beauties of the natural world.
long forgotten and taken for granted,
a variety of reds,
blues,
yellows pile up.
our spectrum -
our prism of crystal glimmers -
fill up our everything.
now,
fading away in my remembrance,
remains nothing but a sheer shine,
a dazzling imagination
filled with extraordinary visions,
replacing the wonderland
outside of it.