When i was young, my skin was smooth and soft and un-ravaged.
Then, I grew up, and my top and bottom cheeks sagged, and my laughter
became a tangible memory around the corners of my eyes.
Now, when I smile, there are dimples and there are lines,
like the life-line and the love-line which are supposed to spell out my story
on the palm of my hand.
When I opened my eyes as a child, I saw brown water and blue skies and popsicles.
I saw floats on a lake and boats and friends splashing in from a water-trampoline,
yellow life jackets bobbing and children shouting.
Now, I still see blue skies, but sometimes there are white clouds and sometimes grey.  
I see my mother with her own memories of laughter around her eyes and I see the crevices
at the edges of my father’s mouth from smiling and frowning.
I smell flowers now, and little boys inform me they're fuschia, and when I breathe
at night my pillow smells like London and my room like lavender so I am home and
abroad at once.
Once, when I was sad, I would think mommy and daddy mommy and daddy.  
Now, when I am afraid, I think mommy mommy daddy I miss you.  
I sleep in a twin bed and I tickle myself and it is like I am in kindergarten but now
my fantasies are slicker and harsher but they still paint pictures of a school girl.
I lay in shivasna when I was young yet not old, and I saw a peach pit uncovered,
and it transcended back in time to a baby, just born in the world, and I realized
how it is we can die before our bodies do, how our minds can leave even though
we physically stay.

you planted trees down my worries—
grew love in all of the places i was
too afraid to shine
and now a forest grows in all of
the corners your fingers got to know
and magic leaves are dancing to your breeze

someone once told me that curiosity kills the cat
and yeah maybe when you first smiled at me
i wondered where you had been my whole life

and i think that's where we went wrong

just like the nights you spent telling me words
in the way your language speaks them
while i spent all of my belief
on the movement of your mouth
being the key to my soul’s wildest dreams

but magic is made up of tricks

and you sure are the master at making me think the trees from your seeds were real
but lately the plastic leave have melted
from the fire you had rekindled in my heart

but even if the words weren't true
you gave me something bright and new
and i know we all are trying to be
the best versions of these humans beings
so i don't blame you
for being what you came here to be
because really i chose you
to come do these things to my heart
i prayed and hoped my way to manifesting you
to be there when i looked up from my lonely hands

but my god

if only you hadn't come into work that night
if only i hadn’t stumbled to that side of the beach
to that side of the planet
if only i had done one thing differently in my past
maybe just maybe then
i wouldn’t have fallen into the arms of lost hope
and maybe we would have never known
that magic could exist in strangers
that love can be felt at first sight
and everything occurring now
would feel real

but instead
i am walking through some kind of lucid dream
and i can't figure out what my room
used to feel like
because now it looks so unfamiliar to me
just like the person i am

i can't find her

what did you do when i looked up at you
some kind of unkind love spell
i just want to be free...

i want you

but you don't have the room
for someone like me

To adolescent girls
We know infatuation as love.
A cute boy, paying attention and being kind
Unlike our mothers and fathers.
Or a handsome young man
Showing just enough distance, and disinterest,
That it is familiar, but we do not yet know why…
So the starving soul craves more, more, more.
So our stupid hearts say love, love, love.
I do not know about you,
But in retrospect I do not think that I loved these boys.

I would sit up late, plagued with an insomniac’s depression.
Thinking of these boys that had left me in the dust,
Commercials playing loudly over an old box television.
My impressionable brain unaware of the absorption of utter *******.
But the logical fallacies of consumerism and capital leaked into my psyche,
As I begged to be noticed.
Rebranding myself every so often
Once even under a different name.  Always new labels;
A cheerleader, an emo, a stoner, a scholar
Trying to find some sense of self,
Trying to sell my soul (subconsciously) for acceptance.

No one ever understood me like you,
And I dare to say, perhaps out of ego, that no one has ever understood you like me.
You've had friends for longer than me now,
You are happy, without me, clinging to your side.
Maybe you are understood once again
Maybe you are the chameleon that I once was.
Either way, I want you to be happy, do as you do.
Although I can no longer be the chameleon,
I cannot change my colors as life goes on around me, fitting in whatever life throws at me.
I feel old, I am deeply tired.  
I know that I am young, but I have seen too much.
I threw my life away for a self-titled happiness extract,
Isolation and degradation became all I knew.
Cynicism rose up inside of me, and when I heard the commercials I once fell asleep to
I decided that not only the advertisements,
But the world was *******.

I remember young adolescence,
I recall kisses and uncomfortable fondling in basement bathrooms and crawlspaces with these boys in which I thought that I loved,
That never cared for me like I cared for them,
Even so it was infatuation and not love.
I remember a kiss in your bed.
I remember the absolute terror when it occurred to me, years later.
I never loved anyone softly,
I loved viciously, desperately, and even loved just to cling on for life.
I loved you softly, I loved you dearly, I loved you deeply.
I always told myself it was platonic, but it was neither platonic or romantic.
I just loved you, like I had never loved anyone else.  Without fear, without sacrifice, without dereliction.
I did not realize this
Until a state-assigned therapist pointed out in the basement of the facility I resided
“When you speak of her, I see love in your eyes that I don't ever see.”
I hated her for that,
“Dumb *****, I love writing, I love music, I loved Xander, I love my family!”
“But Caidyn,” she said
“I have not ever seen this kind of love in your eyes.”
It occurred to me then, and not until then
That when I held you, as you slept
In a hotel room after a concert
As infomercials bellowed violently into my soul
That I will never feel that sense of warmth, happiness and belonging ever again.
Not to say I won't find love,
But the innocence and naïveté
The faith I had, that we would escape side by side
And always remain side by side.
I know now,
That your first love
Never works out like that.

I dream of days where ridiculous advertisements filled my sleepy brain without judgement,
Because for any glimpse of hope I get
I am devoured by longing.
I remember how “everything is *******”.
And feel guilty for my bitterness.
I realize I am no longer young in spirit
I am not the demographic for any meaningless advert.
I am a forgotten human, not an outcast, but a memory to those I cared for.
I can no longer avoid it.
I think of when I held you,
and didn't even think anything of it.