Darling,
You were born in the vision of Clara Barton
In the success of Joan of Arc and Malala
In the memory of Anne frank
You were born for greatness
And for remembrance
You were born for more than you will be given
You were born for weightlessness
But given legs of stone to keep you from flying too high
Born with a heart of gold
Painted bronze
You
Were born for beauty
For Mona Lisa’s smile
But felt like Picasso
Rearranged and imperfect

Darling I hate to tell you
But you will never be treated equally to men
I’ve been told I’m stupid because I’m a girl
And I've held the door at gas stations for men who called me baby
And told me I'd be prettier if I smiled
Men will always look at you like property
Like they are owed a piece of you just for existing
Like you're too gentle to fend for yourself
But darling I have news for you
You belong to no one but yourself
You were born in the vision of Clara Barton who never wed
In the success of Joan of arc
Who was only 17 when she was commander of a French army
And Malala who was only 17 when she won the Nobel peace prize for saying words that could have killed her
Anne frank was 16  when she was murdered
Do you think she was thinking of what she owed men?
No. She took a hammer to her legs of stone and peeled the paint from her heart of gold
She was the Mona Lisa's smile
She changed the world
And darling you can do the same
Break through the stone and the bronze
And be the Mona Lisa

But darling
If someone tells you you aren’t smart
Or a stranger tells you you'd be prettier if you smiled
And you start to feel rearranged and imperfect
Remember
Picasso made art too.

I can not grow used to the phrase “I love you to the moon and back”
I see it so often but I just can’t accept it
How sickening it must feel to only love someone to the moon and back
How sad it must be to have your love limited so much
Because when I think about you
I know that I can not put my love for you in the space between us and the moon
I think of a love so big it radiates through the milky way galaxy
A love so big it itself makes the sun shine
A love that spins Jupiter's moons
My love for you stretches across the universe
Getting in every crack and crevice
Soaring through every black hole
My love for you can not be measured in distance because it radiates and spreads like sunbeams
My live can not be measured in time
Because a love like this can not die
In 20 years I will feel your warmth spread across my face every time the sun shines and I will think of you
And I see it in the past too
I see it in van gogh paintings and hear it in Mozart melodies and feel it in the awe at ancient roman buildings
I feel it so much I want to paint you pictures and write you songs and build you skyscrapers
I can not do any of those things
But I can write you poetry
Poetry to show you that
238,900 miles is nowhere near enough space to fit all my love for you
So no
I don’t love you to the moon and back
I love you throughout our entire universe and all of the other universes
and I don’t know what's bigger than a universe
And space is so big but I love you here
There is infinite space
And infinite time
And all I know is when we lay together
And I look up at you
Breathing softly in your sleep
That is love
So small it is just in that moment
We are so small
And this is all so big
But here
I just want to say
I love you

I’ve been sitting around wondering why I couldn’t be enough for you
And why you never wanted the love I was willing to give
But I know why
I am Manic Pixie Dream Girl to you
And when I became too human to admire
I was no longer enough for you
We all know what happens to any of John Green’s female characters
After we close the books
They either end up alone
Or dead
There’s only two options for a girl like me
Either I am manic pixie dream girl
Drinking some IPA my father would drink
And probably throwing up my lunch in the bathroom
Or I am nothing
I never asked to be Manic Pixie Dream Girl
I dreamed of being dream girl
The one in the movie with the long blonde hair
And the rich father
And the stay at home mom
And the trust fund
But I guess this is the next best thing
I promise you that you know exactly who I am
The girl in the movie with the dyed hair
and the love for some obscure random poet
or band
or artist
She's quirky
And wears flowers in her hair
She smokes too many cigarettes
Or does too many drugs
Or has some mental illness
She has something wrong with her that the audience loves
And she barely speaks
But when she does everyone stops to listen
And the protagonist loves me in his time of need
But once he gets what he needs from me
He’ll get to go back to dream girl
I give him his sense of self worth
And he gets the girl
But the author of this story never bothers to worry about me
He never wonders if I have feelings too
So overtime, through pain and heartbreak
I’ve learned better than to get attached
Manic Pixie Dream Girl knows she only gets a few moments
I did my job here
You learned your lessons
So I guess my time is up
It is time for me to move on
To some other ordinary guy
With an ordinary life
And I will come in, shaking the walls
And once he gets what he needs
He will find his dream girl
And fall for her instead
I will be back here
With this same silence
These same regrets
These same bags under my eyes
I will once again be too human to love
I will be a pile of hair dye and ***** and Bukowski books
And you will be so in love you never wonder about me ever again
But when you grow old
And you have your house in the suburbs
And your cubicle job
And you’re married to dream girl, who you never really loved
You’ll wake up and wonder how you got here
And you’ll remember me
The girl who changed you
And you will feel so nostalgic you will tell your children about me
And I know you’ll only call me manic pixie dream girl
Because you won’t bother to remember my name
anyway

There's sanity in watching you sleep at night
My anxiety sometimes doesn't let me
but watching and listening to you breath
  breath after breath
slow and soft and unconscious breathing
it's enough to melt everything else away for a while
  it's enough to make me sane again
I don't get to see it often
only when my house is closer to point A than yours
or I ask you to come keep me company
But I know soon point B will always be our apartment
We feel so lost right now
  trying to find a place to call home
But I believe we'll find it
It'll be overpriced and small
I don't know where we'll put all your shoes
  or all my camera equipment
I imagine our clothes will be packed in our suitcases forever
  because there won't be any closet space
We'll be too close to the freeway and the trucks will keep us up at night
and our upstairs neighbors will be breakdancers or something
  and they'll always be on the wrong timezone
but none of that will matter
as long as you hold me
and as long as every night
  I get to hear your breathing

My best friend calls me to ask me how I feel about everything
I reply with “which everything?”
There are so many everything's these days I can’t seem to keep up with them
They spin in clockwork motion
Or maybe more like a wind up toy
Twisting and turning with a click until they explode into motion that leaves me breathless
There are so many everythings
Sometimes they give me whiplash
Sometimes I try to ignore them but they grow like an alarm clock, louder and more annoying every minute.
I try to kick them down but they are resilient
I try to paint them, try to disguise them as oceans and sunsets and birthday clowns
But the paint doesn’t stick
I try to fold them up like antique clothing in an old dresser
But the mothball smell is always there in my nostrils
I try to tuck them under the bed, hide them in the closet, abandon them at the supermarket
The everythings scare me
Reminding me how I am alive
Reminding me that I can not escape them
They will always be here even when I am not
My best friend asks me how I feel about everything
I ask him which everything
If he means the everthing in which I live in the most beautiful place in the world, thousands of miles from home, I would tell him that is the one I paint as sunsets, too beautiful to ignore
If he means the one in which the boy I loved never loved me, I would tell him that is the one I that I try to hide under the bed, but it always makes its way out at night
If he means the one in which my grandfather has died recently, I would tell him that is the one I try to hide away in the dresser but I always find myself opening it back up and finding myself wrapped in his hoodie that was given to me
If he means the one in which society grows scarier everyday, I would tell him that one is the alarm clock that wakes me shaking and sweating in the middle of the night
If he means the everything in which the poetry isn’t enough anymore, I would tell him it’s the one I tried to abandon at the supermarket when buying notebooks and fountain pens and books written by Poe and Bukowski
If he means the everything in which people I trust constantly hurt me, I would tell him that is the everything I try to kick down like a stray dog, but I always find myself letting back into my house during a rainstorm
But in reality I don’t say any of this
He has everythings of his own
We all do
And they’re always here
The everything's do not leave us
They are the only friends we keep for life
They are the ugliest thing in a sunset
The most beautiful thing in a sunrise
They contradict themselves constantly
You can’t predict their next move
And they always leave me breathless

We never got to go to the hookah bar like you promised me
It’s funny how life works sometimes
One minute you’re so in love you’re drunk on it
And the next thing you know you’re hungover
And the stomach acid taste of his next girlfriends name burns in your chest
I always knew we wouldn’t be together forever
But I still let this tear me apart
I still lost my dinner when I saw her for the first time
And god it hurt
I’ve never been drunk before
So this metaphor I’m trying to crack open might be a cold one
But I know you know alcohol like your middle name
(and your last name and your first name)
You know PBR like a lover
And drink $5 wine like it’s from the fountain of youth
But we thought we were invincible
And that night I hold onto
Has so many memories
Sometimes when I think of them I still feel like I can never die
But that’s probably what my friends mother thought
With her BAC of .3
And her car sinking into the water
Life was good to her
With her 2 sons and 3 daughters
Her job promotion
And her health
But she still swore his name burned her like whisky
Down her throat
I’m worried I’ll hold onto you forever
But I’m even more worried I'll forget
Forget how good it feels to love
Forget how good it feels to be alive
Because the first time I had moonshine hurt like hell
But I don’t want to forget laying on my kitchen floor crying
Because it tasted so bad
Because the memories are what keep me alive
They leave the tipsy feeling
But take the blackout harmony
It isn’t the same when the alcohol leaves you
So I am sorry
I am sorry that I stayed drunk too long
I am sorry that I am a disaster when I’m hungover
And I am so **** sorry
That I just sobered up
But I still feel the burn
Of our names together
And our favorite poetry
And your smile
I don’t know what comes after sobriety
I don’t know what comes after you realize the person you’ve loved
Never loved you to begin with
I don’t know what happens after the hangover fades away and you’re only left with what it really feels like to ache
But I guess it’s time to find out

In an era where used cars are “pre-owned”
And ****** are hard to come by
I search back alleys for a sign of life
All the flowers died in my apartment
A lover tells me it’s from the cold
He hated it and so did they
I thought he meant of the winter
I spent the last 5 years meat free
My cats hate me because
I can’t share plums with them
I plant the pits but they never grow
A different lover tells me that isn’t how plants work
I’ve never been smart
But any good man likes a starving *****
Except for the ones that matter
So i wink at the guy in the produce section
His daughter asks if I’m a witch
I say yes
But he’s too committed to a piece of metal
To visit my apartment
Of death and empty flower pots
I wear a lot of black
But my favorite color is yellow
I want yellow shoes
But I’m afraid they’re too brash
So i wear olive heels
And pin stripe dresses
And heart shaped sunglasses
Because spring is here
And everything is warm
But my flowers still will not grow
I always thought he meant they didn’t like the winter
But he always meant my heart