how many stars do you see tonight?
I wish I could make out the constellations
but when I see a glimmer of light in the sky it looks more like an escape route to a better world
If I trace Orion's Belt on my wrists the  aqueous stardust bleeds from my capillaries and I can understand why a universe outside of this one may be a better place for me to reside
I keep tracing my skin with the lens of my telescope to search for planets I have yet to know
Maybe there's a part of me I haven't discovered that will let me know where I'm supposed to be
Maybe I'm not there yet
Maybe I will be soon

if I tie your wrists to the arms of a chair, until your fingers turn purple and muscles tense up for lack of circulation, your limbs incapable of movement, your body no longer under your control, do you think I could match the pain you made me feel when you decided my body belonged to you?
If I lock you in a jail cell, seven feet by two, key between my palms scraping against my flesh, blood dripping from my open tissue because somehow you still hurt me even when you can't touch me, do you think then maybe I could escape from thoughts of you breaking free, able to invade me again?
if I drown your eyes in hydrochloric acid, would the color burn away like the way you stole the color in mine? Like the way you stole the colors from my life?
I can only see in meaningless shades of grey, for the rare moments I actually choose to open my eyes

when you slid your tongue down my torso and bit into my skin with your carnivorous incisors to write your name
when you penetrated my soul with an uninvited spirit to shift mine out of the way
when you decided I was no longer inside of my body, for I had to make room for you
you forgot to bury my mangled corpse and
you left me to the ground to be fed on by the animals with blood on their breath
and I'm running out of meat

kiss the blood off of my lips, describe to me what my humanity tastes like
when your hands are around my neck, can you feel that i am human?
after you look me in the eyes, i watch you turn away
you are searching for the soul those eyes were made for, you recognize my soul is a restless wanderer
you will not find me
you cannot taste me
you cannot feel me
but i am still here
i will let you know where i am
when i'm finished looking

i dreamt that I tasted honey on your lips and encompassed your veins with my fingertips
an eyelash fell entrancingly down on your flushed pink cheek
"Make a wish"
I kissed it off your face as you closed your eyes, inhaling the universe into your lungs
your eyelids like pillows providing comfort for your gentle visceral organs
I didn't ask what it was you wished for
you held my body so tenderly and soft
your imaginary touch put me into such a deeper realm of sleep
I woke up with the color of your eyes  staining my carpets, my sheets, the glass of water by my nightstand
the way the sun was shining that morning, I had to smile to myself
It made me wonder
If maybe that was what you wished for

looking dead into my eyes you told me how beautiful i was
you leaned over as if you were going to whisper into my ear but instead you shouted and ruptured my eardrums
i cannot hear
like a naive, excited little puppy you held a treat out in front of my patient eyes filled with life and you threw it into my mouth but before i could even taste the essence of your flavour you pulled it from between my wet, hungry lips
because you realized you wanted it all for yourself
i am so happy you finally know what you want
but you knew what i wanted
and you took it all away from me

I watched as he slicked back her silk-like hair into a french braid, almost like he was weaving himself through the strands, connecting himself to her. I watched with innocent eyes, young eyes, tired eyes, confused eyes, I was only five. At five years old I was able to recognize where I stood on the scale of human worth and I was able to acknowledge the fact that for some unknown reason I, along with me and my two other sisters, were placed below her. She was so high up above me that I couldn’t even look at her. She was pretty. I, however, was not, and I accepted that about myself for years upon years as I lathered cosmetics onto my bruised flesh, hoping the more I applied, the greater the chance was that you might look at me with the same amount of life in your eyes as when you're looking at her. I was set on a seventeen year long self-destructive journey to try to win your love. I was taught that love had to be won, that no matter how much it stung you had to keep that clean and pristine smile on your less than average face, because you weren't to let them know you were hurting.
I wondered if there were others like myself, enduring a relentless identity crisis, trying personalities on like wardrobes. I wondered if it were possible for the pain to be diminished, if it were possible to learn how to breathe again, so I began writing. I wrote my feelings down on paper and somehow they ended up on a poetry website, encountering view after view, like upon like, accumulating feedback from others who shared the same pain I felt.
"You're beautiful," they wrote.
At the time, I didn't understand what they meant by this. No photos of me were posted, how can you measure beauty through words?  I learned that being beautiful meant having minimal flaws, dropping jaws, turning heads. Being beautiful meant being loved, being beautiful meant mattering. I didn't understand, so I started singing.
I sang and let my words exert themselves through melodies, through D-minors and half-broken music notes, I sang, I sang, I sang, and oh God, I couldn't stop.
"You're beautiful," they shouted to me while I was on stage, performing with a fleeting heart that was ready to burst out of my chest and run away, but this time, something was different, I understood.
I knew that she meant I am beautiful in the way that I am, the way that I spill my emotions through my songs like an everlasting ocean, and I knew that she meant I am beautiful in the way that my mind is in a constant state of perplexity.
I looked at her and I saw her face, her pretty face, her face that I longed to have. She had a perfect nose, perfect eyes, perfect lips, perfect complexion, perfect hips. I believed all these things were the key to love, and eternal happiness, I believed they were the ingredients to making me beautiful, but now,
I'd rather have a bent nose, boney hips, bad skin and bad lips, and have someone tell me I'm beautiful, because I knew it meant I was beautiful in the way I loved, laughed, wrote, sang,
Than to have no physical flaws and ignorantly believe that being beautiful in the way that I look, is enough.
So I will keep being beautiful, and not to feed the myth that some day you will love me for me, but because I have finally found what I was made to do, and who I was made to do it for.
I am a girl, inside a song, inside a poem, and I am my own.

you remind me of the poem i wrote before i became confident in my writing, the one traced in smudged black-inked scribbles, soaked in tears, lathered in self-doubt that i crumpled up and threw away
and just like that paper lying in a state of disarray, no matter how many stanzas i write that outcompete that one i still see you hiding in the corner reminding me of my mistakes and naivety
i see you and i remember i can pick you up and try to fix you to make you into something that it meaningful to me again but it would be no use because your substance is still there and i cannot make a miracle out of a disaster
i wish i could pick you up and light the words you spoke on fire
i wish you were as temporary as a piece of paper
but you're a million sentences i've written that i'll never understand
you are the words i have not learned
you are the poem i started to write but never finished
you are the mistake i will never forget