The suburb’s still a skeleton
but now I wear its bones.
I was backlit,
bored,
all drywall and divine punishment,
first names shouted through screen doors,
ceiling fans spinning
someone else’s damage.

I kept saying I'd leave.
I kept writing it down,
spending my stories on soft drinks and scar tissue,
but
there’s a difference between
nostalgia and necromancy.
Between naked and naive.
Between full of stars
and just
falling.

We said forever
like it wasn’t
a curse.
Like it wasn’t
already dissolving in the pollen.

I wrote hymns for mouths,
sloppy as mascara in rainlight,
that made meaning feel like a dare:
the emotional oversights
we let ruin us twice.

Flannel soul,
face like unfinished business.
He touched me with all the guilt
of a borrowed god.
Begging,
but never burning clean.

A slippery little eulogy
sprinting toward a dawn already
in someone else’s rearview.
He didn’t kiss me,
but he almost did.
And I’ve been sick about it
ever since.

An ode to night
that chews at the hem
of what we thought we were.

Being here now is
already retroactive.
Already haunted.
Intertwined
like seatbelt bruises.

A small canopied disaster,
still posing.
still pretending.

I was a rooftop girl,
and I meant it.
Which is worse, I think,
than being believed.

The sky never answered,
but I kept
sending poems.

The suburb’s still a skeleton.
I’m just better at burying
what I mistook for light.

I expected it to be gradual,
Like feel every day of my life,
Watching the sun rise then sets,
But then I become 25,
After a nap the length of my childhood.

Once upon a time I was guided to walk,
To learn in school with a teacher,
With classmates to learn with me,
So I learned better through them,
With some friends I had fun with.

I used to write so much,
A lot of thoughts with little words,
So smart, so creative, so brave,
But then I got here,
Barely spilling time to be me.

Why do I feel so empty,
When I have a life so full.
A love strong to waive my mistakes,
A home to keep other worries out,
And a job to do that pays well.

I travel and dive to the oceans,
I drive to the far high roads,
I fly to more islands,
But then I go home and think,
Why am I still sad?

Maybe this is growing,
The uncomfortable phase of consciousness,
When you think more of the things to do,
Than just doing it,
Always with fear of getting it wrong.

Because for the first time ever,
You are alone and fully responsible,
For your whole being,
And it is scary,
Growing up is scary.

there will come a time, my friend
where you’ll look back on that
road full of bumps and potholes
whole, being able to look in the mirror
and see yourself, not shame, not despair
just you wait

We said we’d never stop believing
in fairies,
in kindness,
in return phone calls.

We swore we’d never
become like them.
The adults
with milky eyes
and calendars
and knives
they only use for mail.

You said we’d grow up
but stay soft.
Like peaches.
Like lullabies.

You pulled your own tooth out
in second grade
just to see if the blood felt like something.
It didn’t.
But you didn’t say that out loud.

I held your hand
and told you it meant
you were brave.

You said the tooth fairy would bring you
everything you circled
in The American Girl Catalog.
You got two dollars
and a cavity.
Welcome to Earth.

I still have some of my baby teeth
rattling around in a film canister,
in the same box as my First Communion Dress
and my Princess Diana Beanie Baby.

I thought I was just saving pieces.
I never knew which parts of girlhood
were meant to be disposable.

As if saving them
meant I hadn’t lost
the rest.

I remember when the world was a honey *** —
sweet and endless,
when the biggest worry was a blustery day
and whether Piglet would blow away.
The sky was wide, and the ground was soft,
and the trees whispered secrets if you listened long enough.

Back then, I knew the Bare Necessities by heart:
A river’s hum, the sun’s warm kiss,
feet splashing through a world that never asked for more
than laughter and a little bit of wonder.
Baloo taught me how to sway with the breeze,
to let life be easy —
but no one told me the breeze could turn cold.

They don’t warn you when the Hundred Acre Wood starts to shrink,
when the trees lose their magic
and just become trees.
One day, you wake up and Christopher Robin isn’t coming back —
and you realize you have to be him now.
You have to pack up the toys
and leave the forest behind.

But I miss the forest.
I miss the rustle of leaves that sounded like adventure,
the way a cardboard box was a pirate ship,
or a rocket,
or a house where everything made sense.
Now my ships sink in student loans,
and my rockets crash into expectations.

They said growing up was an adventure —
but no one said it was like Shere Khan waiting in the dark,
all teeth and waiting for you to fail.
No one told me the man-village had rules:
Wear this. Be that. Don’t dream too loud.

But sometimes, when the night is quiet,
I hear Baloo singing in the back of my head.
Sometimes, when the wind shakes the trees,
I swear I see Tigger bouncing through the branches.
And I hold on to those echoes,
those soft, honeyed memories,
because the world gets heavy,
but childhood taught me how to fly.

So maybe I’ll keep a little bit of the forest with me.
Maybe I’ll hum the Bare Necessities when the bills pile up.
Maybe I’ll remember that a blustery day
is just an excuse to hold on tighter to the ones you love.

And maybe, when the world says grow up,
I’ll whisper back —
“Oh, bother.”

Blue stares at me in a crowd,
Seeing a blue that I knew lightyears ago.
Well I'd be ****** here you are again,
Offering me entry into a home I once knew.

Now you are smiling next to the window
Of the house we shared.
New curtains droop down next to a figure
The figure of evil.

Leaving you behind, a wave washes over me
Of sentimental longing or wisful affection.
Craving to have had won you,
To have saved you from the evil you are still so drawn to.

It's just that the moon is full,
And I hear a voice on the telephone that I knew lightyears ago.
Flicking the switch I cut out a part of myself.

The hurt of it ripping me in two,
The moon phases and I swim up, meters of blue still above me.
Stroke after stroke I rush to breathe.
Year after year I still pine after it.

Now I look out of the window with curtains that droop,
That droop down next to me
Throwing a dim light on a double bed

I fell in love with a boy at 16,
and here is a list of things he taught me:

1.) People who love you will remember the little things.
2.) The people who look the happiest are probably not even a little happy.
3.) No matter how much you love someone, you can’t make them choose you.
4.) People will repeat the same traumas done to them without even realizing it.
5.) If you just lie there and silently cry, it’s over faster.

P.S. I really hope you’re in therapy,
especially now that I see you have a little girl you call your own.

Unlucky horseshoes,
strewn around the fields,
where I used to play.
Captured ankles after curfews,
absconded sword and shield,
laugh at me from yesterday.
I used to cry with curlews,
now my mouth is sealed,
like the word unsay.
Broad and mighty purviews,
are now wisps that yield,
to ground on which they lay.

You'll never understand,
the pain with which you struck me.
The young outstretching hand,
has wizened into an old and grizzled duppy.
The noose I wear by your demand,
has the same shape and plans,
as those; hateful, possessive, and, ******;
horseshoes unlucky.

@poormansdreams

can see it now in a stuffy auditorium
half of those students don’t give a ****
it’s hotter than a crematorium
and everyone just wants to go out to lunch

i can see her now - the principal’s crying
she can hardly get the words out
nervous laughter and everyone’s trying
whatever it is, to figure it out

i can see me too, when she breaks the news
“i regret to inform you” but i already knew
grim curiosity, we’re all wondering who
and the world liquifies when she says it’s you

silence, something switches, day to night
last night you were found dead, abandoned
and i’m saying no god, it can’t be right
cause he would have called me beforehand

it shines like the city
and it breaks like the bridge
and we should be drunk
but this is a school trip
they’d find exhaust in my lungs
if they did my autopsy
i’m soaking up in puddles
wanna breathe gasoline

the heat is too sweaty
and the people don’t smile
and it’s not LA
But let’s stay for a while
and you hate LA
it’s all concrete and palm trees
so let’s go get burgers
let’s go get ice cream

glitter like winners
and it’s sticky out here
and somewhere it’s winter
but somewheres never here
this station’ all yellow
am i in a movie?
this is living, worth filming
i’m finally breathing

scream off the balcony
up 46 floors
suburbs in the sky
wanna break down the door
live like real people
leave our shoes on the floor
watching the sunrise
and still wanting more