Mixed emotions
Unclear notions
I'm in roller coaster mode
Do I hold on?
Or do I simply just let go?
Honestly, I don't know
I'm not 100% sure of who I am
I'm growing, still learning
And constantly yearning
For a deeper understanding
Of this womanhood business
It's a very complicated existence
For instance

Society describes what a woman should be
So faintly
All of the descriptions I hear are nothing at all like me
And since I don't quite understand what I should be
When I make mistakes on my womanhood journey
Society ridicules me
But why? I don't know what I'm doing
And since I don't, shouldn't someone show me?

How should I conduct myself?
Why hasn't anyone prepared me for this womanhood test?
Society shouldn't just expect
That I should already know how to be
Independent, submissive, loyal, loving and trustworthy
Especially if no one took the time out to show me
I only had society to mold me
And clearly
Society doesn't know what a real woman should be
I couldn't learn how from TV
Those people, those images are nothing but deceit

So what's a girl to believe?
Oh, society you don't know either?
Fine, well when you find out
Maybe you should teach me

From this perspective,
it's almost like I can see the future.
It's just one busy highway-
An infinite stretch of pavement.
It looks like my veins, and the traffic is your blood.

Side to side of me passes with a blur,
forests to hills, to forests on hills.
I spot the beach and smell that endless surf.
For just a moment, I leave the road
so I can touch the dirt.

i read poetry in the morning
with chai, stains awoken
and i’d like to believe
i can remember at least one hundredth
of the photomemoirs i’ll make
walking home from science class today;
because that walk is all my heart sees
and my brain knows not
to see things how i would write them -  
.
then i noted the monarch butterflies
dancing to the tunes of their
pheromonic wingharp love unknown,
swiftly along colorful breezes;
when i walked home,
and then i felt this strange feeling -
there is too, a beauty in being alone

If you were an ice cream flavor,
you'd be the 2/3 of Neopolitan that doesn't include vanilla—
and I'm not just saying that because I love chocolate and you don't.
And if you were a city,
you'd be Corsica: you're Italian and, I don't know anything about Corsica but
It sounds nice
Sounds like gorgeous coastal sunsets (or is it sunrises?)
And if you were a street
you'd be 2250 West – the distant street I grew up on.
You're both familiar, short, and I could spend all day just watching you,
running up and down you,
laying up late at night, watching stars with you.
If you were ribbon,
I'd be your present; I'd tie your ankles behind my waist in the most beautiful bow
and on Christmas morning, you'd be the only gift I wanted to open.
I'd wake up early and try to peek without unwrapping you entirely.

‘Let’s do a Sam, Patrick and Charlie,’
(Do I even have to tell you that
I’m always in-yes with you?)
‘What’s our tunnel song?’
Click. Radio music filling the car.
You tell me over the music that
You don’t want a tunnel song
Because
Why have one song when we
Can have a playlist of it?
Our tunnel playlist starts with:
                                                         01. young blood—the naked and the famous: you’ll keep my secrets
                                                        ­                          hope to die/promise and swear it to the sky.
                                                         02. love somebody—maroon 5: and if I fall for you/ I’ll never recover
                                                         03. lego house—ed sheeran: and I’ll surrender up my heart /
                                                                ­                          and swap it for yours
                                                         04. animal—neon trees: what are you waiting for? / take a bite of my
                                                                ­                           heart tonight
                                                         05. yellow—coldplay: do you know? / you know I love you so
                                                         06. i need you now—lady antebellum: and I wonder if I ever cross  
                                                         ­                                  your mind / for me it happens all the time
                                                         07. lightning—the wanted: how many times do I fly through your
                                                                ­                  headspace / now it’s speeding away from a safe place
I don’t even like half of the songs
The radio played but it was
Perplexing how I find a
Line or two of it
To keep track of
My feelings.
‘Do you see it?’* You gesture at the road.
I recalled that bit of Charlie’s letter.
Omitted bits of it and filled it with some
As lightning—the wanted starts to fade
And another song plays,
‘I like this song,’ I tell you
‘I like it, too.’
and if you only die once/
i wanna die with you
‘Let’***** the notes,’
—fingers drumming on the wheel
I finger snap occasionally.
When the song ended, we have
The same answer for the same question:
‘Do you feel infinite?’

You pull on my lip like an aircraft emergency oxygen system.
Our engines catch fire
as our tongues flutter like the wing's peeling metal,
and as our eyes peek at one another
between each plane crash of lips.

We've lost cabin pressure
as we can no longer control our bodies.
We gasp for each other's breath
as our shimmering structures
roll around on the sky of my bed.

We kiss like we've only got seconds left,
when in reality,
these moments will never die
even if we do.