i’ve wanted to be a mystery for as long as I can remember. my whole life, i ached for someone to wonder about me, to need to know more, to write pages of poetry about me, to feel love songs in their body when they saw me. i desired words of love and lust and wonder to describe me. i never understood what i was doing wrong, why i wasn't receiving bundles of pink, heart-shaped valentines full of adoration for me, why i couldn't seem to make anyone curious about who i was. i'd watch others only share small pieces of themselves to capture the hearts of random lovers, and i so wished to do the same. i know that, deep in my core, that's not who i am. my heart is tattooed on my sleeve, and every emotion that goes through my mind appears right across my face. i feel too much, there's no way around it. no one will ever wonder about a girl if you can easily see what she's feeling. i've tried to crush that part of myself, tried to drain my body of all the excess feelings. it refills though, like a river after a drought. the water always returns, most often in storms. the feelings rush into me and make it impossible to mute them. i've come to the conclusion that i will never be a person that a stranger on the bus sees from across the aisles and thinks about for the rest of the day. that those who want to be wanted rarely get that. that i will forever be the one who writes poetry about someone, and it will never be the other way around. it hurts, but i've realized now that no blurry, rushed words about a love for me will ever grace a page in a diary, even if that's the only thing i need.

i miss you so much that the sun hurts my heart because it reminds me of you

Mom,
If I ever decide to tell you
That tomorrow I’ll be gone…
What will your response be?
Would you support me?
Would you tell me it’s okay?
Would you tell me my decision isn’t wrong?

Tell me that…
Someday you will understand
That you will try
At least

I assure you
If you ever hear those words,
It wasn’t easy for me
So don’t try to change my mind
Don’t try to stop me
Don’t make me pity you

Tell me you will miss me
Tell me you’ll be sad
Tell me you’ll remember my last words
Tell me you won’t forget my birthday
Tell me you will cry

It’s not that I want to hurt you
I just
I want to know I’ve meant something
At least
Something

.                                                              

                                                               ­   "The wind rustles the forget-me-nots
                                                                ­      In the many balcony flower boxes
                                                           ­                       And so the shrieks of foxes
                                                                ­                               lose their distance."

She’s inside,
finding her bearings.
Fiddling her earrings
around.
******* cardamom pods
White.
And smoking licorice black cigarettes
Her lips faintly popping as the smoke escapes,

                                                       ­   Pop,

And reflecting how she’s been
As lucky as lavender isn’t.

                                                         ­         "the wind sharpens the beach dunes
                                                           ­                    flutters my tangerine towel,"

                                                      Po­p, pop,

                                                           ­        "fills my little girl's glitter-gel shoes"

No,

                                                    ­      Pop

She rubs it out before she sets it down,
sharpening her eraser.
Settling her glass
no chaser.

Her cigarette smokes on its own in the ashtray
a straight grey line caught in the breezes
from the door frame and under the floorboards,
like a seismograph recording of a dancer’s hips
or like any sound man could ever consider making,
escaping up to heaven from the tip of Babel.

She takes back her black ***
Before any more paper evaporates.

                                                          -Lig­ht-
                                                         Pop, pop

Her poems are great shipping tanker oil spills
of vowels,
hoping the reader feels their lips
mouthing kisses along with it.

                                                            ­  Pop

                                                          ­                           "no one ever really tastes
                                                                ­                          one another on theirs,
                                                                ­                                                or saliva,
                                                         ­                                                       so weak
                                                            ­                                     weak as the smell
                                                                ­                                  of potent *****."

Now the wind's at the window,
disturbing a spider
abseiling slowly
and inevitably
as falling snow

                                                           ­    Pop

into the ashtray.
A lifetime of weary acceptance of tragedy.


                                                      ­       -Stub-

And maybe I too love the dandelion,
As if it was not a ****,
As if it did not turn quickly to seed.

It may be a fleeting passion,
Like that of spring snow,
Like that of low tide.

And maybe rather, I love the bumblebee,
The one perched on the dandelion
The one trying to make a strong home.

Though this too says little,
For what is love if it cannot last?
For what is love if it cannot stay?

For winter will come and they will die,
Yet I endure with winter,
Yet I endure with memory.