No one ever feels sorry for the pretty girl
Why should they?
She gets dinners and dates and all the attention any heart could desire
Who could complain about being the center of attention every day?
Other girls would **** to be told they're beautiful as much as the pretty girl is

But you see,
No one ever taught the pretty girl she has the right to say "no"
No one tells the pretty girl that she's more than pretty

Because pretty fades
And pretty girls know that
And pretty girls are terrified that when their bodies fail them and all they have left to offer is their heart, soul and mind
That whoever loves them won't stay

Because no pretty girl
Knows what it's like
To be loved for more than her pretty

Funny, isn't it?

How I can tell complete strangers words I can barely utter to myself
Yet I hide the greatest secrets from the ones I trust the most

I see your ghost
In all the places you used to be
In all the places you should be

I feel your absence always
When it's my birthday and you don't call
When I go to parties, alone

I never realized how much I let you in
But your ghost makes sure I'll never forget

You brought back to life the pieces of my heart I thought the world had killed

Sometimes it takes losing something we love
To see all the love that surrounds us

No
His eyes weren't dark
And he didn't smoke cigarettes
He wasn't mysterious and stormy
He lacked charm and the ability of smooth talking

But he loved me
God, he loved me
And one day
He realized he didn't

And I will write about that for the rest of my life

They asked me when I knew it was over

*"The day I stopped being able to sleep when he was laying next me."

As I took his face in my hands
Tears streaming down his cheeks
My raw heart out of my chest
I told him,
"Heartbreak is the worst pain someone can experience. But your heart is strong enough to get through it."

And if all we were
All the pain you caused
Was for that moment
Just one brief second where I was able to give someone peace in midst of tragedy
Then losing you all makes sense
And I wouldn't think twice about going through it again

They all knew she was strong
But none of them could really fathom all the strength that had been required of her
To survive what she had

How funny
I always thought about how lucky I was
That you loved me

But the truth was
You were the lucky one
To be loved like a girl like me

I think it's funny when people say
"People don't change"

Because I am so far from the person I used to be
Very little of the original me remains
These scars are proof of the growth I've done
The mountains I've climbed
The fires I walked through

People do change
You have no choice
When people burn you so you must raise from the ashes

In an weird way
I owe you a thank you
Because when you broke my heart
I realized that there are still parts of me
That are soft enough to be broken
And that is a gift not many can give me

You made me feel
Silly and
Stupid and
Ashamed,
That you
A simple boy
Was the thing that destroyed me

Not years of loneliness or mistreatment or trials

No
It was just a simple boy with a crooked smile
Who broke down all my walls
Who peeled back the hard layers of my heart
And gave breath to all the softness I forgot was there
It was just silly you
Making me fall in love with you
Only to make me watch you fall out of love with me

It was that, that destroyed the girl no one else could ****

It's just love
But oh,
Love is the most potent thing any human can go through

She was beautiful
And tasted like whiskey
She played coy
And told me I could ask her anything

"You're an open book."
I said. She smiled tauntingly.

*"But you're written in a lost language everyone's forgotten how to read."

I don't know how to explain the bizarre reality
That you went from being the person I spoke to
Everyday for years
To now,
A dead silence ringing in my ears

My brain can not understand
That the man I knew is dead
And the one who killed him
Stands in front of me

Because the two
Inhibit the same body

In all my time loving
I have learned
That men
Need love
Just as much as women

I could kiss a million men
Or never let another touch my skin

But none of it changes the fact
That it's you
That it always has, always was and always is
You.

She always said "I love you" first.
She-
I love you always
She-
Always first
She-
said always
She-
said "I love you" first
She-
always said I love you
She-
I love
She-
I love always
She-
First love

You.
I love you always.

You can't erase me
Not after the way I loved you

You don't get to forget me

I don't get why we think drinking numbs the pain
Because no matter the amount
You're still consuming my brain

It took me
Sitting on a floor
In a strange apartment
With a man I didn't know
Thinking about just how much I didn't want to be there
That finally helped me understand
Why humans so desperately chased love

Because with all the fear and unknown
Even in the risk of heartbreak
I just wanted to be held by a man
Who wanted to also hold me in the morning

It hits me in the weirdest ways

Like when I see a picture
Of you wearing a t-shirt I don't recognize

Or being asked questions about you
That I don't know the answer to

And while I've moved on
It never gets easier realizing that
*you moved on too.

To be honest
I can't really tell anymore
The difference between the princes and the dragons

We're just a bunch of kids with commitment issues
Because we were raised to believe
That we have so much extra life to live
So even when we've found the greatest thing
We convince ourselves there's gotta be more
So we get drunk
And avoid any type of feelings
Because being numb
Is better than believing
That maybe we were the lucky ones
The rare few
Who got it right on the first try

And even in my drunken haze
I wondered
What you'd think of me now
With men draped all over me
Kissing me and touching me in your favorite spots

I wonder if these men can taste you
Because your kiss still lingers on my skin
I wonder if they can tell the difference
Between you
And the brokenness that you left behind

I'll never understand what you saw in her

But what does it matter?
Because whatever it was
It made you believe I was worth leaving

You bought me roses
I watched them die

You told me you loved me
I believed every lie

"Did you ever think just maybe-"

"Yes. All the time."

She always said
"I love you"
first.

You say
"You're gorgeous"
As if I should be thankful
That you find me so

But honey
Don't you know?
A woman like me
Will never be charmed with words that simple

What happened inside of you?
What changed?
When did I go from being the person who gave life to your breath
To the tedious chore you felt obligated to acknowledge?

You asked where it all fell apart
And I replied
"We both loved you the most"

She'd never admit it out loud
But all she truly wanted
For someone to look at all her power and strength
And see how terribly fragile she was

What a paradox
When an old lover
Meets the life that continued after it left

You sat in front of me
As we discussed what happened after we gave up on each other
And all the things that you would've been the first to know
I now keep to myself

I want to write
In a million ways
All the beauty in your soul
How it's you I desperately crave
But when I sit to write the words
My mind goes blank
My tongue gets twisted
My heart starts to cramp

Look at how much power you have over me
Just thinking about your voice
And I'm crippled on the ground
Unable to do the one thing I do best

It doesn't matter
When I met you
I knew it was gonna last forever
Whether it was mutual
Or not

I was fire
And you were the house
I burned in you
Till we were doused out
So now we're just ashes
Some new girl will try to blow away
But no one could forget
How brilliantly we blazed

Which is worse:
Discovering you were lied to,
Or finding out the truth?

They kept asking
What I would do
If I ran into you

But it's the thought  
Of never seeing you again
That keeps me up at night

"Vannah"
Her little hands grabbed my face,
"Where does it hurt?"

"In my heart, little one"
I whispered back.

Her tiny finger pointed to my chest
And I nodded my head

"How do you fix it?"
She quietly asked

"I don't know yet, little one. I haven't figured that out yet."

At the end of the day
I can write a million times
How much happier I am without you
How terribly you treated me
Or how many new lovers I have who are better than you

But I'll miss you
In the quiet
When I'm alone
I'll always miss you
Despite the truth that we are not meant to be together
*I will always be missing you

When she walked by
They all stopped to whisper
"Didn't you hear? She's insane now"

But they always failed to mention
The boy that drove her there

They all warned me about you
Your charm is a legend to be reckoned with
But I said no way
He'll have no effect on me

But then you made me laugh
In a way I never had before
And you looked at me
In a way that made me weak
And at 4 am
With you nuzzled in my neck
I was absolutely helpless

In my most loneliest of moments
I wasn't alone

I hear your faint whisper
From in between these bed sheets
Taunting me always
With the memory of you

I liked to think we weren't fools
For believing it could've worked
But then again
This bed was too small
And my love was too big

And in a weird way
I owe you a thank you
Because in all the misery you caused
I found myself