I have a bad habit
of falling for
messed up people.
Maybe it’s because
my own sadness
recognizes theirs.

So darling, let's fall in love

and apart.

writing you poems feels like relapsing into self-destruction

And I spent years crying over people who could not love me enough, only to realize I was one of them.

mental illness hides itself in the unwashed laundry spread on your bed and on the bedroom floor. it hides itself in the dust that settled on your favorite books and in the permanent markers on your powder-blue walls; it hides itself in skipped meals and in the messy hair you hadn’t washed for a week now and in the chorus of your favorite song you no longer sang to. it hides itself in your favorite constellation — in the night skies and star clusters you stopped gazing at and in those vanilla ice creams that no longer felt comforting.

mental illness is fickle, sweetie, for it hides in bad dye jobs and unopened birthday letters and in dishes piling on the sink. it hides in your limbal rings while you look at those sunsets that feel like summer storms. it hides under your skin while you stand under the shower, wondering why you even bother to bathe, or when you freeze in the middle of street, waiting for the bus to come. it hides in mornings you force yourself to get up and clean your room.

we know it, don’t we? it hides in trivial things. it hides in places people won’t look at, sweetie. it hides in proses like these

He is the muse.
A constant variable,
A short fuse.
Absence unbearable,
The great unknown.
Love, out-
grown.

He is the bass.
A deeper vibration,
A song written in space.
A sober libation,
Divine flaws.
Cue the
applause.

He is the sun,
But above all, the rain.
A planned hit-and-run,
Un-navigable terrain.
Six feet, three inches.
Distraught, fresh
stitches.

He is the ebb,
But also the flow.
A tangled web,
Fresh footprints in snow.
A new way to break.
The most deliberate
mistake.

He is the rose,
The rose-less thorns.
Interminable prose,
Angel-grown horns.
Tables now turned.
Bridges skillfully
burned.

He is the mirror,
She finally faced.
An image drawn clearer,
Adoration misplaced.
Ego crumbled.
Three words,
mumbled.

i’m so sick of cigarette poems and ***** poems and midnight coffee poems and summer rain poems

and all poems

that remind me of you.




well, they all remind me of you.

And once and for all, I just want someone to tell my whole story to — all my realities and lies, all my lived experiences and suppressed wishes, my secrets, my regrets, my fears, my victories and my losses. I just want someone who’ll keep a record of who I was and who I am, in case I don’t make it — in case all of it fades with me tonight.

Maybe I left my dreams in the last song I sang in the shower. Maybe you left yours in your first, half-empty cigarette pack, still hidden beneath a pile of clothes.

Maybe somewhere along the way, it wasn’t our dreams that died, darling — it was us.

you always ask why i always stay in my room, in that voice that always made me feel small and vulnerable — the one that always made me feel like a five-year-old girl wishing that the blankets and the stars will hush the thunders.

you always ask why, dad, and yet you always find ways to hurt me the moment i come out of this four-walled shell, ashen and gray from all the storm clouds circling over my head. you always find ways to spot the cracks on my skin, like i was just another wall in this crumbling house. you always find ways lasso your words around my throat — tighter and tighter, i can no longer breathe. you always find ways to unhinge my mind; to unbottle all the tears and all the loose pieces of my heart hastily stitched out of place.

dad, i am caught in a trojan war brewed by my demons, and you are paris, piercing all of my achilles heels; stitched; tender; still healing from all the poisoned arrows you shoot — a year ago. two years ago. three. four. and for years and years, you always find ways to crush me, like the cans of your empty beer. you always find ways to crack and snap this bent framework; my bones are broken from the weight of your words. you always find ways to hurt me and hurt me and hurt me and hurt me again — like i was never the little girl you played dolls and cooking sets with; like i was never the little girl you watched disney movies with. like i was never the little girl you used to love — dad, i am still she, now trapped in the body of an adult. i am still she, now trapped in the prison of a dusty room you unknowingly co-erected. and i guess i'll stay right here where i'm trapped, but safe. i guess i'll stay right here where the voices only come from my demons.

i'll stay right here where you can't see me.

i'll stay right here where i'm not hurt.