I don't miss ******* on your brothers bed, sweating on plastic wrapped mattresses,
Or hitting my head on the frame,
Hearing my name when you came,
Or laughing about getting caught too many times to count,
I don't miss wasting away on your couch, watching Game Show Network and eating takeout,
Or making out after fighting,
Or turning out the lights in the house to sneak by the rest of the family after ***,
I don't miss it but I digress

Oh, God I'm freaking out
What if I never get around
To pursuing my dreams and I stay stuck
Like the lump in my throat that stings
An ember burning its way through my chest
But never gets deep enough to see what I need, where I need to be and what makes me feel free oh god,
Oh, god I'm freaking out
What if I never get around
To pursuing my dreams
The East coast buries me under slush and AC leakage, oh God I can't breathe
Oh god I'm freaking out,
What if I never get around
To me,
And then it's too late
I need to escape

I feel electricity when we touch
a buzz I left in my seventeenth year
with latex condoms and ****** beer,
but I felt it there with you

I feel warmth when we talk
a calm I lost in translation,
decoding frantic cries in adolescent desperation
but I breathed deeply with you

I feel alive when we lay, wherever we may
A high I abandoned for minimum wage pay,
nodding off in cubicles to keep debt at bay,
but you make me forget that

I feel something with you that I forgot I could,
My heart races without desination, knowing it should
s t o p
and enjoy the view this time,
I feel fine this time

for three years you were my knight,
night took over and flooded my castle but you fought him off
with great chivalry, with cunning words you lied to me
to insinuate safety

but I don't need that anymore.

for three years you were the beast,
who I defended my kingdom from,
at last I have won against the forces that threatened me,

I don't need you anymore.

When you sent a message and begged of my hand,
chills broke my silence, weakened my stand.
For a minute, maybe, I wanted to say yes,
I blushed at the thought of reuniting and bliss,
but I walked outside alone to say no,
and realized there that I had built a moat.
It surrounded my kindgom, with great width and more depth,
and it was filled with water from tears that I'd wept
every time you came back and then left,
and while you shined in the moonlight, I felt weary in the knees,
but learned that you were my night and with you I can't see
I am the moon, I am my own ******* ******* light,
I'm not a last resort when you can't sleep at night


so I said no.
Because I don't need you anymore.
I won't be there ever again when you come to knock down my door.

I made scenes in my head in which I was stronger,
My words cut like knives and I was no longer afraid;
I had it all planned out, what I could have said 8 months ago
For now I keep it in because you don't deserve the energy,
but just know that you haven't beaten me;
Your insecurities brood like curdled milk and they surfaced in the summer; feeding off whatever looked your way, latching on to diminish the pain of your past.

I understand. You hate yourself so you hurt others.
Your suffering is not unique and your tactics are weak,
twenty one years old with a heart of pavement;
how does it feel to always be chasing something that you know you'll never find? you waste all of your energy trying to consume mine.

But I am up here, twenty years old and no longer full of fear,
you hate yourself and I see through it,
you burn your bridges so no one else can do it,
I don't sympathize as I won''t toast to that; another pill you'll slip me if I put my trust back,
but just know you're transparent, it's really embarrassing.

I could have said it months ago but no one else was listening.
I fought you back in my head and that's enough for me,
I don't have to win to feel undfeated

I'm b r e a t h i n g for the first time
Alive, what a surprise
The trees sing to me, I bask in their glory
I'm a piece of the universe, the universe is in me

I feel her when I'm b r e a t h i n g

taught to articulate concisely
to breathe fresh air, easily
but plagued with pollution
from corporate illusion
i refuse to stay still
in the sprout of a revolution
so I am letting go
of what smog still resides
what does not fuel my insides
this is goodbye,
to everything I have that I do not need,
and a hello
to me

Lost so much last year
that this one is blank
and for that, I am thankful
Regrets no longer hold my hand
and walk me across the street
for I have learned through my pain
to use my own two feet
here's to a year of resillience
of thought and humility,
brilliance.


What will you do?

****** you
for being the only thing
that hurts me enough to write about
for not being a part of my heart anymore
but loitering in my brain
inhibiting anything else I try and create,
*******
I want to write about anything else
but I have not felt that much since

I don't want to know what could have happened
If I stayed and let you play my strings
to the same songs I dodge in public places now
because everyone knows how that turns out
My friends watched me fall over once a day in agonizing wonder
how you could call me a chore while I called you a lover
I don't want to know what could have happened
If that day in January when you told me I was nothing
didn't change the way that blood flowed through my body,
but I felt it change course and  collapsed in the kitchen with my family,
they didn't know that I was sick, you didn't look like illness to me
But I don't want to know what could have happened if I didn't leave,
because I can't count high enough to predict the nights I would have been unable to breathe

you would have taken the air right from my lungs if it could get you high

but I don't want to know what could have happened because despite it all, I turned out fine