I want to start off by telling you that there have been days I can't remember my own name, but I could never forget yours. You used to look at me with a way that made me remember to drink more water and do whatever it takes to stay here, but now I'm just ashamed of where I am. I never wanted this to be my fault. You and I both know that.
One day, I will find someone who loves the way I stutter when I'm nervous and they'll kiss me whenever I say I hate the way it sounds.
I don't think that anyone ever really understood who I was. I'm a different person for everyone but you were the closest I ever got to being myself. I never felt my mask when I was with you.
I thought I would be okay with you but I find myself still crying into my coffee and turning off my music when certain songs come on. No amount of poetry or metaphors could ever make this pain beautiful, all it's really done is help distract me.
All I wanted to do was hold your hand so tightly that you regretted the night you stopped believing in love.
Let's talk about being gentle. You were never gentle with me. I had a dream that you caressed my face and I woke up crying. Your abuse has scarred me so much that the thought of you raising your hand to me is more realistic than a kiss. I wanted to be gentle with you everyday, even on the days you couldn't find it in you to be gentle with yourself. I wanted to be your home. I wanted to love you in every way there is to love a person and you only want to love me when I'm in your sheets. I think that my chest is a graveyard of all of the versions of myself I killed while trying to be a better person for you.
Do not ever let anyone tell you that home can't be a lonely place because sometimes home is a person who doesn't want you around anymore. Homes burn down every day, but there was something deadly about the way I woke up and decided I didn't love you anymore.
Let's go back. The first night I saw you smile I started praying to a god I stopped believing in years ago. We were in a Taco Bell drive thru. The night that you held my thigh in my car was the first time I hadn't wanted to crash it in forever. I can still hear Come As You Are by Yuna play in the background and the way you said you liked the song. I can't listen to that song anymore.
I'm so sorry for leaving. I'm terrified that there will never be an end to this mess and you're the only thing that never scared me about forever. The worst part of all of this is I'll probably spend the next few years trying to love someone how I loved you. It'll take me a while to heal from the emotional abuse and turmoil you've put me through this past year and a half. It's been a wild ride. I don't regret you. I knew you were a snake when I licked you up and it's my fault for sticking around after countlessly being bitten. You've shown me more about myself than I will ever learn with anyone else.
Your hands are so sharp, all I wanted was to hold them till you became gentle with me again.
I'm sorry. I love you.
Savanna.

av woond -  vwash maya

neeth - kh ya dash - shhma kh

t yeh t yeh - mal koo tha kh-

neh kh wayt- zeve yan akh-

ay khannad - vwash maya -
aph var ha


hawv lan - lakh mad -
sun kh yanan - ya omana

vwash vo khlan - khau v yen -
wah kh tah kh yen -
ay khana - daph kh nan -
shh vwo kh yan - l
- kha  av yen -

wela - tah lan -  l nee s yuna

ela - patzan - min - bisha

metol - dila khe - mal khu  tha -
wah hala - watesh vukh tah -

lah lam
al min
am yen

My Father used to say “poetry is in everything; darling, even in the way you listen.”
That was before he burned all his books
And moved across the street and miles away
But I hold no grudges
For he has thought my ears more intimacy than my brain ever could
Maybe that’s because they’re prone to ‘unrequited love’
And when Yuna said “you don’t wanna belong to me because freedom feels better”
I understood why my mind never confessed to my heart
What it witnessed heartbreak do to my soul,
Perhaps Marvin Gaye explained it better
When he sang “I want you”
But you see, this piece of literature isn’t supposed to be about love
I wouldn’t dare call it poetry
But it is a work of art
Like the mix tape I made myself when I was counting my last days
First on that list was “hold on” by Alabama Shakes 
I wasn’t oblivious to the irony in my choice
But I suppose I forget all about it when I’m lip singing to Gnarls music
“Does that make me crazy?”
“Probably!”
However, sad brad smith won’t let me give up
And in their words I hear “I want you to help yourself”
As if I was the guardrail to my own happiness
What they don’t see, though, is that
Nothing could ever replace the things I’ve lost
Maybe that’s why I have a certain weakness for sad songs
It could also be why I can find sadness in all happy things
And I know I’m not alone in this every time I hear
“The yawning grave” by lord Huron
He tells me “I’ve sent you omens and signs”
He tells me “I’ve thought you melodies, pomes and rhymes”
But I’ve lost faith in those omens
Because Hozier left his words printed on my chest
“There is something so tragic about you,” he said
I have to believe he knows me best
Well before I even began to know myself.
Sometimes I wonder if all I am is a patchwork
Of all the music I’ve ever loved
And the discarded pieces of all the once I didn’t have the heart to
Because every time I try to
It makes me want to scream “I can’t feel my face when I’m with you”
It makes me want to experiment and live
And blast “Novacane” in to my eardrums
Until all I can hear is the sound of forgetting
But when the play list ends I’m pulled back
By “remind me to forget”
With memories that thrive to live on the surface.
Perhaps I’m waiting to be saved
It could be the reason why my pulse quicknes
When Berhanas song plays in the back ground
“Go the whole wide world just to find you”
Until I’m slapped back to reality by my father’s words
One of many
That I couldn’t be forgiving enough to let go
I have my own escape though
On the rooftop across town
And when I look below
All I can see engraved on the earth
Are the words “wings wouldn’t help you down
down towards the ground, gravity’s proud”
So I take back my words
Truly, Bon Iver knows me best
For I’ve lived up the turret my whole life
Hoping someday my bones would grow feathers
That would protect me from the waves of solitude.

Colombus, Selena, Zia, Rachel
Each with a different story
Jewish, Entitled, Slave, Terrorist,
Named with a thought of history

Colored, Black, Asian, Arab
These names we assign on assumption,
Helena, Winfrey, Yuna, Amal
Names we will never find out

Each with a different story
A whole life of mysteries
Because we will never find out,
Instead,
We name with a thought of history,
Making our thoughts their mystery,
By names we assign on assumption

But all it takes, to expel the misconceptions,
Is Two,
The person with the story,
And the courageous one who listens....