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Sep 2018 · 545
********
heather leather Sep 2018
your name is the only thing that makes the alphabet matter,
I knew this was real when you told me to stop dreaming
and start living. I love you.
it'll never change.
yes, this is about love. because everything is and I'm glad I've finally come to terms with it. shameless self-promo but I just decided to make an instagram for my poetry (@deadtalksx) follow me if you want I guess.
Jul 2018 · 2.9k
"what's catcalling?"
heather leather Jul 2018
it's unnerving how easily a pair of eyes strip me down
and take away every layer of defense
I have built up over the years.
hey sweetie, why don't you come over here?
because I don't want to, because you're repulsive
and your voice is scary and I felt your eyes on me
from the instant I crossed the street and I was hoping
you wouldn't speak.
want me to show you a good time?
but I was having the best time before I knew you existed,
when I was still just a person walking home
and the silent threats you make hadn't made it to
the horizon of my mind
****, what you doing walking around with hips like those?
hips like these belong to my mother and
her mother and all of the women that have come
before me. in my body I possess history and blood
so strong it was only ever spilled during times of war.
how dare you. attempt to take that strength and power and pride
away from me. don't you know that I am magic,
that my body exists as art only
I should be allowed to admire
who gave you permission to steal from god's temple?
[I still see the dark look in your eyes
when you said that to me, the emptiness of
your pupils haunt me. they say that you see
me as nothing more than a body, a corpse.
someone to walk over.
someone to conquer.
you licked your lips and winked, the
wrinkles in your skin were clear even in the dark
and I could see that your two front teeth were
missing, so now I can't stop having nightmares
you grabbing me and tearing me apart, using
the same legs you whistled at as toothpicks]
why are you walking so ******* fast?
because you are terrifying. because I know
despite how brittle your bones may appear
there is a large chance if you catch me I won't
escape. because the risk of not escaping is an
automatic death to me in every sense of
the word. because I have friends, and they have
told me how their bodies were pillaged at the
hands of men like you.
who the **** do you think you are?
I think I am an island and I wish you
wouldn't insist on being so intrusive.
******* too, *****
I just want to go home. I just want to go home.
why can't you let me do that?
you're not even that pretty anyway
when I met up with my best friend
she hugged me
and said I smelled like vanilla,
that I got more beautiful over the summer,
and that boys are going to lose their minds
when they see me.
my mother shows me off
boastfully, brags about my small waist like it
is a trophy, tells all my family that I am
peligrosamente hermosa,
dangerously beautiful.
and I believed them until I met you.
after an incident yesterday where I was walking home and a man and his group of friends started catcalling me, they ended up following me until I took refuge in my local supermarket and hid there until it was clear they had left. for anyone who feels like they are being followed: trust your instincts, it is much better to be safe than sorry. go into the nearest store and stay there until it is safe for you to leave or even better, until someone can escort you home. I wish desperately we didn't live in a society where women's bodies are dehumanized and threatened on a daily basis.
thoughts?
Jul 2018 · 416
letter to H
heather leather Jul 2018
the first time I saw you smile
I understood photosynthesis
I knew then why
flowers died
without the sun and
how my entire life
I had been wilting
Slowly
without your warmth
then I heard you speak,
your mouth poured honey
So sweet
I was positive you kept
bees in the root of your teeth
I didn’t even know you
and yet I was convinced
I would grow to love you
you told me your name
and I cried
Silently
at how beautiful it was
H, I don’t think you understand
see I had spent the hours of
sleepless nights carving you
into my bones
so much so that you had already
become apart of my skeleton
before you even knew who I was.
and you learning who I am was
the best part. I watched
Fireflies
erupt in your eyes as I told
you my favorites of everything
and I had grown so accustomed
to seeing that
Light
in your eyes
I didn’t even noticed when it
Faded.
see I had dug you into
my bones, so even when you
Left
you still weren’t
Gone.
It's been a while, this is an old poem but one that I think I like. thoughts?
heather leather Sep 2017
I found her under my bed,
the way I imagine little kids find monsters
or mothers find empty pill bottles
she was shaking
the last time I saw her we were both
hiding under the bed but summer came,
I let it's warmth into my frozen body
and forget that the sun harvested
poison berries.
I escaped but she stayed, told me that
I would find her once again
here we are.
I could see the goosebumps along her arm
and asked her
why are you so cold
she smiled,
the kind of smile where her lips curl at the ends
and her teeth are hidden
don't you know it's winter?
I glanced at the sky and saw the snow fall.
I guess it is winter after all.
it's been a while and I have no idea what this poem is or what it means. thoughts?
Nov 2016 · 734
fragments
heather leather Nov 2016
I have given fragments of myself to people
who have only broken them into smaller pieces;
at this point my skeleton is made more of paper
thin apologies and not actual bones so when
I become an avalanche of emotions I've convinced
myself I don't feel and anxiety, when even the
shadows that still manage to scare me have managed
to fall asleep but I still haven't, there is nothing left
to turn to but this poem. and I don't know what this is.
I could call it an ode to all the people that have decided
I am just a damaged garden and there is nothing poetic
about planting flowers where the sun does not exist but
even then that would insist there were people willing to
plant weeds in abandoned graveyards
in the first place.
maybe I am selfish.
maybe it is wrong to want people to stay;
how could I have ever expected you
to love me when I never loved myself?
all I have are memories.
people I can only write stanzas about.
letters I can only read over and over again trying to
convince myself that I must've mattered.
I have given fragments of myself to people who have only
broken them into smaller pieces. this poem is probably
just an ode to my imagination for actually believing my
relationships with them were ever anything more
than just that, fragments

(h.l.)
Aug 2016 · 1.8k
mixed breed (jabao)
heather leather Aug 2016
jan from the corner store doesn't understand me,
I told her I wasn't mixed; my parents are just different
shades of the same color but she doesn't believe me,
and the man behind the counter silently agrees.

the old white lady that always takes the 5 train
stares at me curiously, her eyes say they don't trust me
and I don't understand why. I never thought I had to
explain myself to strangers or that my race was the most
interesting thing about me but that's always the
first question everybody asks.

my aunt told me the other day that I was jabao,
in other words, nobody knows what to do with me.
I am unidentifiable. my skin screams the sun and
stars too small to recognize; it says I am the product
of a collision between the blackest sea and the whitest sand.
some parts of my body sing a ballad so dark only certain
people would ever want to listen to. maybe these are the
parts that the old white lady on the five train is scared to
listen to. maybe the curls I tried so hard to straighten are
what terrifies her, maybe the black in my kneecaps keeps
her up at night, maybe the sound of boisterous music in a
language she could never understand makes her skin jump,
sends shivers down her spine makes her think twice
about who I am.

jan from the corner store doesn't understand me,
I told her I was jabao, a mix of summer glow and
muted winter skin. but she doesn't believe me; says
she has never met a Dominican like me, that in some ways
I must be a mixed breed. and the man behind the counter
silently agrees.

(h.l.)
heather leather Jun 2016
she** is thin and wiry and so unbelievably charming it
is hard to believe everything she says is not straight out
of a 1980's movie that changed cinematic history
because for once the girl asks out the guy and I am just
a shattered home left battered after a hurricane

she is a ghost and I mean that in every sense of the word,
when she left I felt my brittle bones collapse
inside of my sunken body as if it were a cave
and like acid I dissolved myself into everything
as a distraction to try and forget her but
she still haunts me with her smile and her laugh
and when I sleep I find myself imagining her as the shadows
created by the moonlight

her love was toxic. I know this because her voice still
shouts at me to do things despite the distance that has
grown between us; when I met her I was in a bad place.
I needed someone to be there and she was. she was the
only one who was ever there for me; it was unhealthy and
cataclysmic but she was there and that was more than enough
but then my tears started making her happy and my
anxiety gave her strength and I told myself she wasn't a
problem; until I realized I couldn't distinguish who I used
to be before I met her and she still makes her way into my
life at times but I have found calling her by her real name
scares her. it shows her that I know the mask of deception
she wears and that I am no longer afraid. my therapist asked
what I used to call her, before I knew, I said a friend. I know
now who she truly is and the word still tastes like iron in my
mouth. Depression.
thoughts?
Jun 2016 · 575
childhood ; or lack thereof
heather leather Jun 2016
fourteen.
fourteen and I am alive.
fourteen and yet I feel like I am five
fourteen and my poems still aren't that good
fourteen and my skin still scars just as often
fourteen and I don't talk to my mom as much I used to
fourteen and I still hate my body
fourteen and I still hate my body
fourteen and I never liked celebrating my birthdays
fourteen and I never liked waking up on my birthdays
to a stranger who looks like me and sounds like me
but isn't me because I'm fourteen and that's
supposed to make a difference
fourteen and I feel like I am too young to be writing
about the things I do but my cousin's fourteen and she
does the things I am afraid to write about
fourteen and this is probably the only honest
poem I've ever written in my life
fourteen that's probably why it isn't that good
fourteen and I feel like I'm running out of things to say
fourteen yet there are so many things I haven't said
fourteen and I miss the way people used to love me
fourteen and I feel like it's ****** up that I don't miss the
way I used to love me because fourteen was when I stopped
remembering what that feeling felt like
fourteen and I don't hate school as much as I thought I would
fourteen and there's nobody in my school I'd celebrate my birthday with
fourteen and I haven't talked to someone I love in months
fourteen and I have more regrets than my age
fourteen and I realize that means nothing but it feels like it means everything
fourteen and I used to dream about doing impossible things but
fourteen is the number of dreams I have that died
fourteen and I don't blame the people that have given me love
and then tossed it aside because it's been a year and my tears have dried
fourteen and I have learned my heart is an abandoned garden
that only grows weeds and that planting flowers in it is useless
fourteen and it took me a long time to realize that I am more than just my age
fourteen and I wish I was still five, with my hair curly
and my mother's soft singing the only tune in my mind
but I am fourteen and life is supposed to be better
in ten days when I turn fifteen and
yet I have a feeling everything will be the same

(h.l.)
tried to write a happy poem about my birthday...don't think I succeeded
Jun 2016 · 461
old
heather leather Jun 2016
old
crumpled sheets wrapped around your waist and the
scattered t.v. remote you were looking for falls into a fold
of the blanket you are intertwined within; you can no
longer give yourself the motivation to do anything, not even
move slightly to the right and stretch a little to catch the
tiny battery in your frail and delicate fingers. your overdramatic
and completely unrealistic soap opera will have to wait until
your grandchildren get home and one of them can turn
the t.v. on for you.

(h.l.)
saw a challenge to write a short poem to try and capture the essence of being "old." hope I did this idea justice!
heather leather Mar 2016
They stand tall and smile beautifully,
any gaps between their teeth is held together by
glue called fear of what could happen if they are
anything but perfect. This glue, it is strong and sticky
and unbelievable expensive, it costs both your pride
and your happiness
[but it's okay, because both would've been taken
anyway. This is America you are a girl and you are a
shade of black so dark it blends within the moonlight.
the skinny twig girl in your class will call you a slave and
you will bite back the salty and sour response threatening
to spill from the back of your throat, that she is the color
of cafe con leche left on the porch and dried too long from
the burning sun of the Caribbean sky; and when she and her
white-washed friends laugh you bitterly think, wow there's no
difference between her and every other ****** here.]
They are gorgeous. Lips so red they remind you of blood at
a nurse's office. Stomachs so toned you want to scream that
your color is not a trend, that your milky white and yet charcoal
black skin with small bumps easily mistaken for traffic signs
with how easily their colors change is not a beauty status. your
skin is not pretty. It speaks an oppressed language with eons
of history behind it like your great grandmother's blood that was
shed onto the white man's land after he conquered something so
precious it could never be given back and you carry that with you,
within the stitches of glass cuts you forcefully made onto your
black skin, sickeningly thinking that you weren't good
enough because you aren't them and inside the skeleton
of your body is your grandmother
and she was a warrior in her own right and you carry her within you
and inside it not something middle school girls can laugh at.
it not something bitter old white politicians can mockingly ridicule
and sarcastically apologize for. it is not something that a boy,
years later at a frat party can try and belittle,
as if saying you are pretty for a black girl makes you feel better.
your great grandmother's soul and the woman before her give you
that milky white and charcoal black skin that can only be described
as the sky at midnight, when everyone else in the small town
you live in is asleep but you are awake and it is beautiful.
it is a hurricane with an infinite amount of water,
it is warfare at it's most addicting point and it is cataclysmic,
and they have no right to spray the dark color of the moon
onto their skin and pretend that the sun does not exist
until it is advantageous for them.
They are pretty.
They are beauty.
They are white,
and you with your Dominican kinks and sunburned skin
are not and this is something that now you do not like
but within time you will come to love.
thoughts?
heather leather Feb 2016
his name was surprise. as in surprise i could find it
within me to love someone so much that their smile was
engraved into my mind at 3:02 pm when i was mindlessly
staring at a window that reflected a world i did not
find any beauty in. the overwhelming desire i had to not
only love but to be loved was so staggering that it shocked
me; i know because i can still hear my mother's yell as i
dropped a glass plate on the floor when i realized that
i had allowed myself yet again to fall into another person.
my mother said i was lucky that i didn't cut myself with the
glass but all i was thinking of was the contagious laugh i
knew you would utter when i told you this story.
[you did laugh by the way, your chest rumbled and your cheeks
were so red they reminded me of wine on a white dress;
you put your hand over your mouth to cover the slightest gap
you had between your two front teeth and the happiness
on your face set my veins on fire]
i say that i fell into you and not that i fell in love because i
do not believe it is possible to fall into something so
deep and electrifying and morose and survive. i do not believe
it is possible to fall into love as if it were an ocean and it
wouldn't swallow you whole; as if love was some kind creature
that let you swim in the whirlpool it inevitably created. as if
someone could possibly fall into love and not drown as it
mercilessly threw you screaming, begging to be saved. i do not
believe in falling in love because i do not think i could ever be
one of those lucky people who are washed up survivors of
hurricanes so frightening and beautiful you chase it without
knowing why. i am disastrous enough to drop glass plates on
floors to see you smile but not cataclysmic enough to stay while you
try and do the same for me. so when i told you months later that
i was irrevocably captivated by the dimples of your smile and
you furrowed your eyebrows curiously, trying to figure out how to
let me down gently, i already knew the words you were going
to say. we joke about it now, it seems to be an unwritten rule that
you will ignore the wince on my face when you talk about your
new girl and that i will ignore the fact that your favorite of my poems
are the untitled ones written about you. i say that i do not miss your
arms around my waist anymore and it's true, your hugs have become
quick and reluctant so that you do not give me any false hope. but
there isn't any hope left that hasn't been dried by bitter insecutity
and a stubborn need of mine to move on.  i don't miss the way
your endless mood swings affected my day and
i don't miss the way you used to call out my name, joyfully and
excitedly  i have simply forgotten about old conversations
and unfulfilled promises and i have a feeling you have as well.

[forgive me though, your name still slips from the ink of my
pen onto this secondhand journal from time to time. simply for
the sake of writing.]


(h.l.)
thoughts?
Jan 2016 · 562
"ten"
heather leather Jan 2016
when you are ten the bones of your skin will start to
become more prominent and your family will put you on a
pedestal for being skinny and the boys in your class will
call you anorexic that word they learned in science
means unhealthy it means ugly it means disgrace it means
not good enough and you will learn to carve those words
into your skeleton with the help of a knife called insecurity and
it means that you do not walk like the other girls in school it
means that your hips aren't big enough it means that your
legs aren't long enough it means that the only thing
you will love about yourself is that you have the same smile
as your mother and the hope that you will grow up to
be as beautiful as her is the only thing that keeps you alive and
all the men on your block hover over her existence now
that your father is gone and you will now begin to measure
beauty on how many boys you think like you how many girls
envy you and how many people wish they were you. when
your little brother starts to follow you around and mimic your
movements you will push him away and watch as his
big doe eyes fill with tears. you don't say what you want to,
that you are not good enough for him to follow, that you
don't want him to be branded as a loser because of
your association that the screaming itch you have to tear yourself
apart is your second biggest fear and that your first is hurting
him. you don't say anything, at ten the words in your mouth
are choked back into a place deep in your throat where no one
can hear them. your mother yells at you to speak, idiota the
hint of her Spanish accent a reminder of the person she used
to be. now she wears higher heels and shorter dresses and doesn't
roll her tongue or give way that she knows anything about
being Hispanic. her culture has now become a flaw and herself
loathing will project on to you so much that it will be
staggering. you still won't say a word and she will leave, her
head hung in disgust while yours lies swimming in the ocean where
Nemo lives, trying desperately to forget who you are because
even at ten you know, you will not amount to anything

(h.l.)
thought i'd try and finish this age thing although i don't like how this one turned out tbh. thoughts?
heather leather Jan 2016
"hi uh um I'm glad that you didn't pick up actually
because I didn't want to waste your time it's just that
we haven't really talked in awhile and I just wanted to
see how you are, that's all. how long has it been
since you left? a month yeah I think it's a month I mean I uh
I guess it's been a month and uh. um. well how are you?
are you okay? your mother said that you had met
someone like me over there and uh I'm not going to lie
that hurt. why did it hurt. why did it hurt. I don't know I--
I really don't know I guess I just wasn't ready for you to
leave and I know I'm a mess and I'm annoying and boring
and you want to get away from me already
but I uh, I just I don't know what to do anymore you know
it's like I'm so invisible to everyone and it's so frustrating
because I want to talk for the first time about things and I
want to feel I really really want to feel I'm trying really
hard I swear I am, just I don't know how to and please don't
give up on me. oh god I've turned this entire thing about me
again, ****. I didn't mean to I swear I didn't it just happened
I'm so selfish no wonder you don't want to be around me I'm
sorry. I really am. but it's 2:35 a.m. and I tried to sleep but
I can't and I need someone, I need you to be here somehow but
you're not and I just, I guess what I'm saying is,
please don't leave. not yet.

(h.l.)
things i want to say to you but can't things i wish you would listen to but you won't things that would make a difference but don't
heather leather Jan 2016
we have become saturated sponges,
soaking up unrequited love as if it were water
but we are running out of air and chasing nostalgia
like a blind man would his cane has to stop someday.
candy lovers all taste the same, sweet and sour
at the same time and bitter too. he told me he was tired
of just ******* around tired to coming in second place
tired of not being able to breathe because he was
a crumpled up dishtowel on that floor than cannot dry
because he was tired of absorbing my tears on his shoulder
and becoming a monsoon too big to live but too small
to make a difference. i said stay he said no i said i'll
change he said he didn't think i could i said i was sorry and
he said there was no reason to apologize for the truth.
but how can i not apologize when i have made you a trophy
story to tell my friends when i am drunk and moody
because you are no longer by my side. how can the words i'm
sorry not be carved into the cave of my mouth, tattooed
across my bottom lip with jet black ink when i still
call you, just to prove to myself that i am good enough for
someone at least how can i not be unyieldingly grateful
when you put me back together after i was a broken glass vase
and planted flowers in the deepest embers of my imagination.
i am sorry. i am sorry that i am too big of a mess to
acknowledge that i need help. i am sorry that i am so scared
of failure i hide behind big t shirts and razor sharp knives.
i am sorry that i lie through my teeth like a magician and
get angry when you don't tell me the truth, as if i have a right
to deserve it. but most of all, i am sorry that you cannot help
but grow flowers in a place where only weeds grow. my body
is an abandoned graveyard too beaten down to function
and you tried to make it a home and for that, for that
most of all i am truly sorry, from the deepest trench at the
smallest hole in my skeleton.

(h.l.)
"stop trying to grow flowers in a place where only weeds grow," -nr.poems on instagram. thoughts?

the title is a reference to the beginning of Marvin's Room by Drake, one of my all time favorite songs.
Dec 2015 · 534
dec.31//thoughts
heather leather Dec 2015
the sun does not rise in the west it rises in the east and it sets in
the west and the concept of becoming and unbecoming every single
day and night still foolishly drives me into finding comfort that
we are both awake and asleep at the exact same time.
there are approximately 266 miles between us four hours in length
and we still both rise and set at the exact same time. but you
are not the sun. i am not the sun. neither of us are stars in the galaxy
we are only people who dare to write each other in the sky as
if the moon had anything to do with true love. you say that star
metaphors and analogies are over rated and i agree. but what else
is there to compare you to when you are as far away as methuselah
and you are as problematic as the north star because no matter
how many times it is explained to me i can never find it. i just know
that it is there. we are not stars in the universe. he is not the sun and
neither am i. but i swear to whatever being out there that when
he told me he loved me i felt as infinite as the milky way and perhaps that
is why i don't want this year to end because stars are born to die
and i fear i am slowly becoming pluto

(h.l.)
thoughts? happy new years i guess...
Dec 2015 · 869
requiem for a dream
heather leather Dec 2015
he smokes paper. he snorts sugar. he injects needles
into his veins and disappointment onto his hips. he laughs
loudly and talks softly and throws money away onto girls
who pretend they are women and dance for love. when he
sells rocks to the fallen angels on the playground, he pretends
they are dreams. the first time his mother found it in his sock
drawer she told her to throw it out. the second time she told
him to give her some. his smile is the biggest drug his
girlfriend's ever seen and she is in love with a boy
who serves requiem for a dream.
what a nightmare.

(h.l.)
Inspired by the movie requiem for a dream
Dec 2015 · 688
resurrection
heather leather Dec 2015
call it fate. call it destiny. whatever it is, the traces of his finger tips
stain my body like a temporary tattoo that won't ever fade,
the sound of his voice still sends shivers down my spine and i
cannot deny that in this moment, we are beautiful. the sky
is low the smoke is blinding i am coughing
because i have lost my inhaler somewhere in my bag but we
are beautiful. he says that he doesn't need anyone to survive and i
do not respond because the words are lost to him anyway, i
cannot try to reignite a fire that has already been put out but i can
continue to get burned off of second hand cigarettes that have been
accidentally lit. when i told you i was clean you didn't believe me.
when you told me you were through with her i didn't believe you.
faith is a five letter word that is non-existent and useless in our
relationship. we binge drink we chain smoke we laugh loudly and try
to pretend that happiness is attainable through joints as big as
king kong's fingers. if your mother were here she'd smile and look
the other way. if mine were her she'd pretend she didn't know
my name. we're so ****** up babe, the other day you told me that
the worst thing in the world was to be dead, said that i brought
you back to life. you could call it fate, call it destiny, call it whatever
you want; i call it resurrection.

(h.l.)
this is such a mess i'm laughing
"give me some 501's jeans on and roll joints bigger than King Kong’s fingers"
-young, wild and free; bruno mars, wiz khalifa, snoop dog
heather leather Dec 2015
my limbs are broken and beaten and battered and my body
has been used as a wall you punch to release anger time and time
again. my mother says i wear too much makeup and it makes her
cough when i'm around, i do not bother saying what i think--
that if she saw me without makeup she would feel much worse
you apologize after, every time you say it will be the last and i just nod
numbly and pretend it is true because that is what you need,
you need me to tell you that you aren't a monster that you will get
better that this is just a phase even though it isn't
your friends ask me why i haven't left you yet, they aren't fooled by
your terrible excuses of me accidentally falling down the stairs,
and i tell them that i stay because if i don't then who will love me?
you with all your flaws still tell me i'm pretty even when i say something
wrong and you kiss the wounds you inflicted with lips so soft
i wonder if what happened before was just a sick, twisted nightmare
because how can someone as sweet as cheap wine hurt me?
but then i look into your eyes and behind the love you have for me
there is a bitter resentment towards yourself and i am reminded yet
again what you are capable of. then again, it's not as if i won't be reminded
the next time something bad happens.

(h.l.)
merry christmas?
heather leather Dec 2015
I hate my hips. I hate how the friction between my thighs makes
me feel I hate how the fat on my stomach goes outwards and not inwards.
those are the worst days. the ones when my skinny-fat-gangly body
is an odyssey all on it's own and my mother's home cooked meals
become saturated oceans of salt in my stomach and make me become
this uncontrollable monster that eats everything without mercy
and ravages my refrigerator until my self pity becomes obvious
in the mirror as my skinny-fat hips become more apparent and
until I am left by myself, surrounded by tears that taste like fries
that are much too salty and chicken that tastes all too much like diabetes.
I hate my hips. I hate how they don't move to the familiar beat of the
Spanish songs that always play in my house I hate how they are
not big enough to grab people's attention but not small enough
to please my ideals of beauty. my hips remind me that I am an outsider
in my own culture, a family where you see the women's *** before
you see her face and they remind me that I am not socially acceptable.
I hate my hips. I hate my face. I hate how my forehead is large enough
to be a canvas for the world and how my eyebrows are as
transparent as a Dominican ocean I hate how my nose stretches
when I grin and how my ears stick out like something someone
didn't mean to place. I hate my face. I hate how when people look at me,
they do not see the shape of my lips or my cheek bones or anything
I love about myself all they see is a girl with hips too small and
with a forehead to large and with everything wrong. I hate how I look.
being confident is not an option being happy is only a facade
and when my father tells me I am beautiful it takes everything
in me to not tell him to stop lying. insecurity is not something you
simply get over or something you can hide it is the small voice
in your head that tells you that you are a mistake it marches all over
your mind and sets your self-esteem to ashes. whenever I wake up in
the morning there is a pressing weight on my chest and the feeling
that I should live alone because all people will ever see is my
appearance and whenever I brush my teeth I try my hardest to
avoid the mirror but when I do look in the mirror and I see
my reflection the bitter resentment towards who I am strikes me
so hard that it slaps me into reality. I am me. There is nothing I can change
about my bone structure or the large canvas on my face and I will have
to live like this every day until I die.
*how can insecurity not be a problem?
don't tell me how i ******* feel isn't real
heather leather Dec 2015
i'm searching for something that i can't reach

she sleeps irregularly. she cries and breathes all at the same time
but does not make a sound. her face falls apart every morning when
she realizes she is still alive. the anger coursing through the blood
vessels in her body is not caused by anything, it comes rapidly and
mockingly. she counts to ten and holds the air inside her lungs and
hopes to any being listening that her nose stops working so that the
air inside her can expand and then eventually diminsh so that she
can tear herself apart all over again. she eats unhealthy. stuffing salty
fries and refrigerated microwaved chicken down her throat and forcing
the urge to throw it all out down to her skeleton so that the food
remains in her body, making bumps in her stomach and sticking
out of her ribs like unwanted monsters. she likes being ugly. she likes
that no one ever notices her and when they do they don't say a
word she likes that her own body betrays her and punishes her eyes
when she wakes up in the morning and realizes she is still alive.
she is a phantom. she is a ghost. she is a whisper. knowing her will not
be an adventure it will be a maze filled with poisoned leaves and razor
sharp rocks. her smothering brown eyes will captivate you and
undo every single knot in your body and make you feel like gravity
does not exist. but she will not be pretty. she will never be beautiful.
touching her will be like trying to collect shards of glass off of the floor
from a bottle of wine that you accidentally dropped. she will not
love you. she will not love herself. she will only convince you that she is
happy being a mess, a disaster and you will have no
choice but to believe her because your love is short lived and
only exists when she feels worthless and lonely enough to want
your company. you know this. she knows this. neither of you will
say it. the truth is an ancient phonebook neither of you have
ever heard of. *she is not a hurricane, there is no eye in her


(h.l.)
ghost by halsey

"i'm searching for something that i can't reach," ghost by halsey
"do you call yourself a ******* hurricane like me?" -hurricane, halsey

thoughts?
Dec 2015 · 429
marvin's room
heather leather Dec 2015
[are you drunk right now?
are you drunk right now?
are you drunk right now?
]

cotton spider web sheets around my waist
i wish i could say this visit made me want to live another day
but the stranger in the bathroom doesn't even know
my last name. you called me at around five last night
asked if i was doing okay, i wish i could say i told you
the truth when i said i wasn't missing you

you're so ****** up babe
why do i love you?
you keep on leaving but i can't move on
you call us platonic in front of your
new girl and expect me to pick up the pieces
when she's not around

what a whiskey love affair i should have seen all the warning signs
but in my defense you seem more poetic in the moonlight
that in the tear stains on my new lover's bed

you're so ****** up babe
why do i love you?
you keep on leaving but i can't move on
you call us platonic in front of your
new girl and expect me to pick up the pieces
when she's not around

why do i love you why do i love you why do i love you

i'm so ****** up babe
you shouldn't love me
i keep on clinging to a broken past
i call us platonic in front of my new guy
but set matches to the fire that we had

(h.l.)
kind of a song but without rhythm and i kind of like it but i have a terrible voice so

marvin's room by drake
heather leather Dec 2015
i light matches on non flammable things and start fires i
cannot extinguish, i start all consuming love and then tear it apart
viciously and tiredly and try to put back the pieces of my heart
in this sacred chest at the bottom of wherever my skeleton ends
because that is where it belongs, alone and protected
you were a cigarette i denied myself the pleasure of smoking you
were an old record player that i would dance to by myself
at 2 am just because and you were strawberry hill wine in the
middle of the park that tasted agonizingly sweet on my tongue
and scorched my throat into believing this was happiness
i still whisper your name whenever i drive by your house in prayer
that i will never see you again, you are still a ghost in the corner
of my mind and i have a feeling you will always be

(h.l.)
ghost by halsey
heather leather Dec 2015
i.
i am nothing but dust and shadows and a skeleton hanging
in a room filled with cotton spider webs that spell out
misery; the idioms and metaphors carved onto my bones
mean nothing but speak volumes and sound pretty
your art was the epitome of feelings and stories and passion
i do not become upset when people say that you are better
than me in every way possible because it is true

ii.
i only wish on wildflowers in the dark now, that way nobody
can see me cry when my wishes do not come true
you are still gone, far away in a place that is illuminated with your
smile and the treasure that is your laugh and i am here
stuck in a morbid black and white picture

iii.
forgive me, i was not aware that when i told you i loved you i
was signing my own death sentence

how ironic,

because you never said it back once and meant it

iv.
goodbye

(h.l.)
am i aware that this is a broken mess of a poem? yes i am.
Dec 2015 · 754
"real or not real?"
heather leather Dec 2015
real; the unscabbed scars on my knuckles and arms remind
me of rough trees and the grimy surface of soil stomped
on, you compare them to wildflowers but i know that this is
only because you are the type of person to enter a restaurant
with a sign that reads caution and order something anyway,
simply because you are too nice and hate to think of businesses
shutting down and of people failing, maybe this is why
you love me, i still have not figured it out yet

real; walking into school makes me feel like a deflated balloon
and everyone that says hello to me is blowing me up
again with methane i am slowly becoming too big to be tied
down with a ribbon called responsibility and fear,
the anxiety that enters my mind when i am forced to stand in
front of strangers with judgemental eyes and fake smiles
becomes mind numbingly painful and it makes me question
whether or not i am still alive. i still have not figured out
why i am yet.

real; your smile lights up the lights on the lamposts by the
train station where we met it transforms phantoms into people
paper planes into reality and nightmares into dreams
your touch leaves nothing but good intentions and blissful hope
and it leaves my cold unbeating heart yearning for warmth. i
still have not figured out if i like it or not.

not real; you love me. you kiss my wrist because you care
about me not what i went through. you love talking to me, you
wonder about how stars could ever die because you
think i am a walking sun. you keep your promises and tell me that
you care every night. i'm a good person. i have aspirations.
those pills on my bedside are not mine. the mirror is shaking.
i never meant to hurt myself. i'm sorry for all the things i've done.
i have potential to be better. i am beautiful.
not real not real not ******* real

(h.l.)
thoughts?
heather leather Nov 2015
iM sOrrY bUt I cAnNot find a way to breathe because you're
back and I'm not there and you're smiling and I'm crying
and you're laughing and I'm drowning my thoughts into a pen
without enough ink to put all my ideas onto paper and
i aM cHokIng oN yOuR sMile and how happy you look
I used to make you smile I remember when we were never
like that I remember when I never took you breath away
not like you did to me I remember crying early into the morning
because you aren't by my side I remember suFfOcAting
I remember hOw you never cared about me I remember loving
you so much that it would shock me and now you are back
and you never told me because you don't care and you
never did and ******* because I cared. I would've been
there despite what happened I would've hugged you
I would have stayed I wouldn't have run away I am not her
and I never will be but you don't care about that or me
I am nothing but a last priority you only talk to me because
you pity me and stupid stupid me for believing you when
you said I love you back I should have known that
nothing lasts forever, but God I honestly thought we would

(h.l.)
i hate that i am pathetic enough to still love someone who will never care about me

valerie by the zultons (although i prefer the amy winehouse cover)
heather leather Nov 2015
he is not heaven. he is not a deep breath of fresh air after being
trapped inside for so long he is suffocation. when his saturated fingers
touch me I am filled with a never ending fire that keeps me
awake until two a.m. and makes me question everything I've
ever believed. he likes to swear up and down on the metal cross
around his neck and pretend he is God when he looks at me.
his kisses are never filled with love they are filled with narcotics
and taste like a bittersweet kind of hatred. he smokes quietly and
slowly inhaling every toxic fume and making clouds
big enough to convince you that they are skies. everything about him
screams shades of cool he is blue he is black his smile is gold
his eyes are grey and he is the color spectrum at its darkest.
he speaks quietly and laughs loudly and cries silently when
he thinks nobody can hear him. I wake up every morning to the
sound of tiny bullets of water scorching his back but he
likes the burn so I do not say a thing. he loves the way I sing
and teases me endlessly and whispers ****** things when
our friends are around because he is an exhibitionist.
I do not know what this is. I do not know who he is.
but at the same time I do not know who I am either,
we are cataclysmic together and wreak havoc wherever we go
but there is something so beautiful about what a disaster
we are together that i do not want to say goodbye.
he is the lover I never have to worry about loving back
and that if nothing else matters

(h.l.)

11.25.15
"oh **** i think i'm falling in love again. someone pass me the *****, this is going to be one helluva year"

colors by halsey
Nov 2015 · 1.3k
"eight"
heather leather Nov 2015
when you are eight you will start to become sick of waking
up early to go to church but your mother will drag you
with her anyway and she will always spend too much time on
her makeup so you will both end up being late and the
sweet sickly scent of the perfume she sprays on makes
you sneeze and Sundays will very quickly become
the worst days of the week, this will be when you start
to be ridiculed by all the other girls for having short hair
and this will be when your father starts coming home late
enough for your mother to be suspicious and for the
sound of Frank Sinatra's greatest hits to stop being loud
enough to mask her cries as he hits her for being too **** curious.
Sundays will be when you learn that the devil is an infinite
amount of liars starting with your mother when she says
she is fine and ending with your father when he says
he loves you. now when you are bored you will start to
hide in your closet and pretend to be someone else.
your closet now becomes Narnia, it becomes the rabbit hole Alice falls
into, it becomes Neverland and it becomes the safe haven
your mother's jazz records no longer offer; when you are eight you
will feel the weight of the world stretched out onto your all too
little shoulders, compressed into your mind and a monster in it's
own right that is scarier than the one under your bed because you
cannot find a way to escape it, it lives and breathes inside of you and
it forms a pit in the core of your stomach whenever you see
your mother flinch as your father kisses her softly and later you will
find out that this feeling is called fury but for now it remains
****** into the walls of your mind like a bookshelf at a library
and it surges rapidly like a tsunami and leaves nothing but debris in
it's wake, when you are eight you will begin to dig holes in your
skin with your fingernails to release the pain and the frustration
you feel that causes wreckage inside of you and later on you will
learn to describe this as being cataclysmic but for now you are eight
and you wear your hair in pigtails even though it's much too
short and catch fireflies with mickey mouse in your mind as you
hear frank sinatra's greatest hits become increasingly louder

(h.l.)
thoughts?
Nov 2015 · 398
"six"
heather leather Nov 2015
when you are six you will hear many things.
you will hear that you are gorgeous, that you are growing into
a beautiful big girl and your favorite sound will be the addictive
beats of your mother's jazz records and whenever you
are bored you will dance the only way you know how;
shamelessly and recklessly, swaying your small hips and legs
in rhythm with the music. this will be before you become
embarrassed of your gangly and uncoordinated body and
before you discover why your mother plays her jazz
records late at night so loudly. when you are six,
it will be the last time you will remember being happy;
before the word content disappears from your mind
as easily as the stolen homemade chocolate chip cookies
that you would sneakily eat before dinner
melt in your mouth, you will be six and the world will be
the biggest puzzle you cannot wait to solve.

(h.l.)
I'm starting a series with short age poems up to eighteen :) tell me your thoughts !!
heather leather Nov 2015
he is the sun. I used to think the sun revolved around me but
then I found out that I am heliocentric and if stars were infinite he
would never die but we do not live in a type of universe
where love can survive long distance relationships with hallmark cards our
wrecked art is a fire and I cannot tell if you are the gasoline
or if I am a lighter and i cannot tell what difference that makes
or if I really care about either all i know is that space does not exist
to me all that is relevant is the distance between us and they
say young love does not exist they say that this is only infatuation
but it can't be because I know everything about him religion does
not exist if he can't go to heaven the world was not made to
last but he was because he is a shining ember that doesn't
burn he is a form of poetry that never ends he is my favorite book
the chapters are long but I can never get enough and the way
he lies right through his teeth like a magician just about to draw
a rabbit out of a hat is not okay the way he inhales the toxic fumes
of requiem into his lungs is not okay and I know it but the
world was not made to be survived the world was made to be lived
and every time he breathes I swear I feel infinite it's like I'm drowning
but I'm not falling and he is not the brightest star in the
galaxy but he is mine and he is special because he is the *sun.
young and beautiful by lana del rey
Nov 2015 · 763
"she was a paper girl"
heather leather Nov 2015
she is a hostage to her own emotions she is a trainwreck that
causes traffic she is missing in action she is relentless she is insomnia
she is depression she is a 10 paged project that you wait
last minute to start her skin spells out different words that no
one can pronounce, but they ryhme with insecurity and
anorexia her favorite color is a mix between lilac and gray
her favorite flowers are nonexistent because she is the
type of girl to grow flowers where only weeds grow
she is unknown to everyone she meets she is a whisper
among violent storms she is a catastrophe among smiling faces
she is not a metaphor she is not a simile she cannot
be put into words she cannot be broken down into language
if you cut her she will not bleed instead she will cover it up
with a sad smile and the same phrase she always uses: I'm fine
(h.l.)
Nov 2015 · 1.5k
ode to holden caulfield
heather leather Nov 2015
it is easy to become lost in the blinding lights of new york city
and the deafening sound of yellow taxi cabs and screaming
neighbors and the chatter of mundane conversations between
people who are ghosts in every sense of the word with
their paper thin hearts and transparent minds and the inability
to feel something other than the heavy weight of coffee
in their stomachs

it is easy for people to say that when new york city was made
God himself struck down and said "let their be light" but all i ever
see is the blur of motion as everyone runs to jobs they
all hate working with people they despise and then spending
their money at stars that don't even shine in poorly lit movie
theaters when the real ones are in the sky and in new york
every expensive restaurant is vegan friendly and boasts animal
rights and shames everyone who doesn't but no one
ever wonders what happens to the ducks in central park during december

it is easy to fall in love with new york city.
with the magic that it spreads with the euphoria that you feel being
surrounded by others with it's almost frightening ability to
take away your loneliness and manipulate you into thinking you
are happy, it is easy to fall in love with new york city.

it is also easy for you to say that you lost yourself in new york
because even when you say it no one will hear you
over the sound of madison square garden and it is easy to
call new york paradise it is easy to call it the city that never
sleeps because everyone stuck there is paralyzed

(h.l.)
i've often been told that i embody the catcher in the rye and i'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing
heather leather Nov 2015
his favorite color was blue i know because i when i was with
him all i could think of was blue all i could breathe was violets
all i could hear was the ocean and all i could taste was
the sky on my lips and heaven in my mind

the words i'm sorry have died on the edge of my tongue so
many times i'm beginning to forget how they form i
try to call you sometimes to convince myself that you deserve
an explanation but all i hear is static on the other line
i wonder if you can hear me panic on the other side
and the silence doesn't hurt as much as it used to but the
shock that you are no longer here for me always does

cigarettes are more expensive than alcohol i learned that
this fall and if i could buy you love i swear i would but the
loose change that make up my pockets are nowhere enough
and i have a feeling they never will be

(h.l.)
bye i'm sad
heather leather Oct 2015
first you will cry. you will feel every emotion that you've ever felt being washed
down the drain and you will taste the sour, bittersweet heaviness of sobbing at 4:35 a.m. on your lips and you will scream so quietly it will be a whisper to others
but a clap of thunder inside of you and your lungs will stop working and your
ribs will feel as if they were collapsing and you will not be able to walk the next
day because you will feel as heavy as a truck full of rocks

next you will be silent. you won't speak you won't nod your head you won't smile
you won't write you won't move; you will suddenly be able to feel your bones and your stomach caving inwards inside of you and your skeleton will become so thick with the secret carvings in your skin that it will
be a labyrinth that even you will not dare to explore and the world will continue
to spin, everything will go on and you will just stay numb to keep yourself
from falling apart

then you will hate him. you will curse every single being that pushed you to talk to him you will rant about what a terrible person he was and how ****** up your love was in the first place and that it hadn't meant anything and you will say he was just another burning star in the sky you will say his light has started to fade you will say he never cared about anything you will say it doesn't matter and you will yell until your voice is raw and your throat is hurting and you will go to sleep silently wishing that the tears on your cheeks would stop pouring and you will feel an inner self loathing at the core of your chest for being so stupid, for caring about him in the first place, for being pathetic enough to keep all of his things neatly in a box at the corner of your closet because you cannot bear to throw any of it away

then he will call you.

he will make you question every single thought you've ever had, every single moral you had created for yourself and he will tear down your walls with an ax made out of love and nostalgia and he will say he still loves you and he will say that leaving was a mistake and he will make you remember the memories you had blocked out he will give you a new phone number and you will attempt to talk to him but it won't feel the same and all your old conversations have been deleted all your photos are no longer on your wall and you will realize that you are in love with the memories you had together, not who he actually is and you will still cry at night sometimes and you will still be overwrought with anxiety and helplessness and your heart will become a boat sailing on rocky waters but you will be okay.

the word finally will come on a cold tuesday morning and you will be rushing to get to school because you overslept and you will search desperately for your red sweater but you will not find it and you will mutter every curse word you know and pray that your mother doesn't hear you and you will stumble across his sweatshirt and you will throw it on lazily and run to school and you will forget all about it until somebody asks if you like that band and you will smile confusedly and say that you haven't listened to them in a while and you will go home and he will not call you and you will not care because the word finally is branded on your chest and it means that you have moved on. it means that your lungs still work and your ribs are in the right place and you will go to sleep that night with the taste of happiness on the tip of your tongue and it will not matter that he was toxic, it will not matter that all the flowers you grew together have died, in that moment you will feel better than you have in months and you will realize that you are okay, your boat will not sink the storm is over the aftermath has passed and you will be okay.

(h.l.)
Six Degrees of Separation by the Script
heather leather Oct 2015
i do not miss you like the tears that cascade down my
face i do not miss you like a warm april day where i'm dying to
tell somebody that the sun makes me happy but there's
nobody to tell and he smiles exactly like you did before
but there's something wrong like a puzzle made up
of wrong pieces and i do not miss the way you talked and how
the corners of your mouth curved to make the most
beautiful smile in the world i do not miss your hands or the
way they would envelope my own i do not miss the
feeling of your arms around me, hugging me and never letting
go when i needed you

i do not miss you like that

i miss you like 5 a.m. and i cannot sleep because all i hear
are your whispers in the wind and the windows are closed but
i can still hear the rain and it reminds me of the way your guitar
would cry as if it was bleeding when you sung
i miss you like burning hot chocolate that makes
me forget my middle name i miss you like a ****** misses their
dealer i miss you like the aftermath of a war i miss you like
a blizzard on a cold december afternoon and i do not know if
my heart is now made out of melted snowflakes or leftover carrots
that have fallen off the snowmen

(h.l.)
I Miss You by Blink 182, one of my favorite songs at the moment
heather leather Oct 2015
my body is not a ******* billboard for you to stare
at my hips were not made for your enjoyment the feeling
of your eyes drilling holes into the back of my
head do not make me feel beautiful your catcalls
are not a compliment no I am not starved for attention
let's get one thing straight: I wear dresses because I want to
******* wear dresses not for you but for me

I'm not a ***** if I say no and I'm not a **** if I say yes
you are not the king stop putting yourself on a pedestal
I am not required to bow down to you and I never will
I know who I am I am confident enough to not care what you
think of me; my standard in beauty is not how many guys
want to **** me it is not measured by how many boys
whisper about me to their friends you do not
have any influence on my self worth I do not wear makeup
to prove to you that I am pretty do not assume anything
about me I am your history textbook you know nothing
about me and if you did it wouldn't matter because all you
care about is how pretty I look and not who I actually
am and that makes all the difference

(h.l.)
written for a friend who feels uncomfortable at school because guys keep staring at her in a creepy way
Oct 2015 · 478
cataclysmic
heather leather Oct 2015
we did not go crashing down like waves at a shore,
you did not scream like thunder and i did not flash like
lightning there was never a bright yellow warning sign to our
love it was not written in the cool sand of a beach untouched
we were more like carved names onto a tree that
has been weathered, there was no fighting and there were no tears
you didn't cry and neither did i there was only silence and
it was somehow louder than words but we were not
cataclysmic; we just weren't in love
and we were never a tsunami; there was never any
rapid surging ocean to begin with

(h.l.)
heather leather Oct 2015
Welcome to the West Coast, the original land of the
star crossed lovers; the people, the parties, it's all so
never ending, the music, the movies it's all so picture perfect
but you, you're something special

she said, "pretty girl did you think you could get
through life like this?" i said i had no idea what to expect,
i had no idea what to expect and California was just
a star in the sky and California was never meant to be mine,
but suddenly i can feel the sun and the moon align on my thighs
and i can see paradise in his eyes
//
he's a Californian lover at night but he dreams like a
New York boy, i don't think I've ever heard of true love
until he spoke and his love it takes me higher than I've ever been before
[maybe they were right, happiness is a warm drug but
don't smoke cigarettes if you can't control the flames]
forget ecstasy babe this is heaven just you and me
the sun, the beach let's just run away until we find Atlantis
you can be Charles, i'll be Diana we can get lost
and never be found our treasure's a death wish but life is too fun
//
they say young love always dies, they say everyone says goodbye in
California but I'll bet the horizon wishes it
was us babe because we'll forever be running, never stopping
'cause the night is young but we already have plans to seize the day
we've always been young god's, it's always been our way
and kings and queens never die

Welcome to the West Coast, the original land of the
star crossed lovers; the people the parties, it's all so
never ending, the music, the movies it's all so picture perfect
but you, you're something special*


(h.l.)
Young God by Halsey
Oct 2015 · 1.4k
Methuselah
heather leather Oct 2015
you painted the moon on my hips drew constellations with
your eyes on my arms and whispered the word pandemonium in
my ear as asteroids exploded and as orbits formed
i drew the color blue on your fingertips and orange in the
corner of your smile and spelled the word requiem onto your
lips because i knew this wasn't going to last
we lived our love in the sky and memorized the names of
stars that were bound to die and last words we used to live
she spoke the language of the sun and i didn't understand
you spoke the language of wrecked love and made our
masterpiece a work of forbidden art

(h.l.)
"Milky Way's "Methuselah" --The Oldest Known Star of Our Galaxy"
heather leather Oct 2015
one, i cannot breathe. my lungs are inhaling and exhaling but i am not breathing. your name still echoes inside my chest like a balloon that is slowly losing air and i cannot breathe.

two, her name is a red solo cup and a midnight conversation. she is a dare that your friends jokingly made and with the buzz of alcohol in your chest, you said yes

[three, they told me at your funeral that it was only a joke, this wasn't meant to happen, guilt was on their faces and the sky was an odd color of both death and sadness, i cannot decide what is worse; the feeling of the rough thorns that poke my legs or the silent promise you made me that will never be fulfilled]

four, the taste of white wine reminds me of your pale skin and the glass that touches my hips when i inevitable drop the bottle does not feel like anything, i am not numb; i can still taste the heaviness of 2:35 am wine without you on my lips but i am not sad either, it is more like an unleashed phantom that haunts my mind when i try to sleep at night

five, the police came over to my house last week, they asked me if i had anything to do with your lover; i cannot remember the words that i told them all i know is the sound of the heavy door being closed and the bitter taste of sour strawberries that come when i keep biting my cheeks to stop from crying, i've been crying too much lately and i'm sick of it.

six, i tried to visit her yesterday. i tried to bring myself to get lost in the feeling of her smoke that clouded my mind and i tried to understand why you did this. why you loved her more than you loved me, why her dizzying scent was more of a safe haven than my all consuming love for you.

seven, i visited your dealer today, i asked him if you had told him anything about why you were so sad but he didn't say anything, or at least i don't remember it. all i remember is the ringing in my ears when i walked home that night and the traffic lights of new york city. i was alive today, in a way i never have been, i couldn't breathe but i didn't need to.

eight, tomorrow i will clean out the rest of your things in our closet and i will visit our old coffee shop and try not to focus on how i am not breathing without you anymore, because unconsciously i know i always will; that was always the difference between you and i, you smoked to get lost but i kept on drowning because i was already found

(h.l.)
clean by taylor swift
heather leather Oct 2015
the words do not come tumbling out of my pen anymore
the ink seems to have dried and i've killed the horizon
inside my brain with a cigarette ashtray that spelled out
your name there seems to be a permanent eclipse because
i cannot write like i used to anymore there are no more
tsunamis or hurricanes or tornadoes my mind is a
natural disaster all on it's own except there are no thunderstorms
or rain there is only darkness and drowning into a
sea of metaphors i wrote and analogies i spoke;
i think about the girl who thought of them from time to
time, and i wonder if she would be upset that no one
brought wildflowers to her funeral, even though they
claimed she was a sun shower they all ran away when the
flowers wilted, i don't blame them
i did too
(h.l.)
U.N.I by Ed Sheeran
heather leather Sep 2015
you are not allowed to call your sadness a drug,
it is not your ****** or your ******* or your **** it is
a bottle of painkillers that are prescribed to you,
it is an anchor that makes you drown
it is a lifeline made out of ribbon,
but it is not a drug you are not reliant on it to breathe
you know how to swim you do not need those
painkillers they are not yours you can survive you are
stronger than what you make yourself out to be
because you are not addicted to your sadness you are
bigger than this and it is okay to feel like your sadness is
a tsunami that swallows you whole it is okay to
drown into an abyss of darkness at night it is okay to forget
how to breathe it is okay to stumble and fall and relapse
a few times it is okay to break the mirror because you don't
like the reflection but it is not okay to turn the safety off,
it is not okay to run a knife over your skin because
the cool of the metal calms you down it is not okay to
practice a melody filled with screams and sobs as you try to
sink that is not okay please do not think it ever will be
and just because you are not a drug addict does not mean
you do not need rehab, therapy isn't always as bad as they make
it out to be in the books, do not be afraid of your voice you
will not be pulling a trigger if you speak he will never hurt
you again, i promise, just tell someone what's going on i know
someone will listen the word abuse was not meant to be
branded on your body you do not deserve to be this
unhappy you do not deserve to rid all your insides of any
substances trust me when i say you are beautiful, please know
that all storms will pass the color blue has many different shades
and if you are  a hurricane then know that you still have
an eye in you, do not give up never stop fighting yes you are
worth it
and remember that everything will be okay,
because you are not your sadness

(h.l.)
Hey Jude by The Beatles
Sep 2015 · 1.1k
"i write with a poison pen"
heather leather Sep 2015
she wrote.

she wrote words that no one besides her knew,
she wrote feelings that no one besides her felt,
and she spelled those words out at night, when she
couldn't sleep, so that maybe the next day she'd
have the courage to speak

she never spoke.

she never spoke about the thoughts she had
she never spoke about the itchy red lines that lined her thighs
she never spoke to the boy at the back of the class who
loved both guys and girls and who never wanted to get hurt
so he never spoke either

but they both wrote.

they both wrote about abuse, a five letter word that had
been stitched onto their skin with an iron needle and a a fist full
of scissors and the words we'll never make it

she never spoke. he never slept. but they both wrote
their suicide letters with felt ink pen.

(h.l.)
jet black heart by 5 Seconds of Summer
heather leather Sep 2015
i don't know why i like boys who rate girls based on their *****
and smoke cigarettes and talk about things that sound meaningful
but aren't, i don't know why i have trouble breathing sometimes
and why counting to ten doesn't work and why i get so angry
at little things that shouldn't bother me but they do,
i don't know why i have such high expectations but such
a low self esteem i don't know why i can see myself somewhere
in ten years but not in the next one i don't know why i lie and say
stupid things i don't know why i say ******* when i never
want anyone to leave because i don't want to be alone with me
i don't know why it bothers me that i'm not pretty or beautiful
i don't even know why that matters i don't know why i'm writing this
i don't know why i'm crying i don't know why my fingers are
shaking or when my house became so quiet i don't know the answers
to so many things i thought i knew him but i didn't i thought i could
handle all of this but i can't i thought i would never break down again
but i am and it hurts like hell i feel like i am being split into two
and someone is pouring gasoline on me and all i want right now
is to be set on fire so that i can burn and dissolve into the air
into a permanent state of nothingness where i don't have to worry
about why my heart feels like it's made of lead and why
i can't finish sentences without adding on other things because
i don't like the idea of anything ever ending
the reckless and the brave by atl
heather leather Sep 2015
i.
fall is almost here, the autumn leaves are alive with
color and the trees are standing tall and majestic

and you are still nowhere to be seen

ii.

i wonder a lot, if things would have gone differently, if i would still be
by your side and if you would let me
those are the worst days, the ones where you are only an echo in the
wind but it is enough to spark a tornado and the nights come quietly
and restlessly and i toss and i turn and i wonder a lot, if i would ever
choose for things to happen differently

iii.

it's funny how things turn out because just two years ago we
were sharing the same jokes in math class and if i close my eyes and
hold my breath, i can still see you typing furiously on your calculator
and throwing notes on my desk effortlessly without anyone ever
noticing, we were so beautiful in those days; so happy and young and
naive and beautiful

iv.

i don't know where you are anymore, i talk to you sometimes but
very rarely and that thought doesn't bother me as much as it used to
i know that i don't need you in my life anymore, although i have a feeling
that even if i did it wouldn't be the same because autumn leaves always
lose color and we live our love in shades of cool, and it is
no longer beautiful

(h.l.)
red by taylor swift
heather leather Sep 2015
wE wOuLd DaNcE iN thE reFriGeratOr ligHts
aS iF nO oNe wAs watching and SING SONGS
NO ONE EVER KNEW AT THE TOP OF OUR LUNGS
WITHOUT EVER pausing to bReAtHe BECAUSE
SUFFOCATION IS NEVER A PROBLEM WHEN YOU
HAVE OXYGEN AND YOU WERE MY LIFETIME SUPPLY
WE WOULD GET H I G H OFF OF
CIGARETTE DAYDREAMS THAT WOULD NEVER BURN OUT
AND ON SNOWFLAKES THAT WOULD NEVER MELT bUT I GUESS
FOREVER ALWAYS MEANT SOMETHING DIFFERENT
TO YOU BECAUSE yOu  hAVE MET SOMEONE ELSE AND
YOU SAY SHE REMINDS YOU
OF ME BECAUSE SHE LAUGHS A CERTAIN
TYPE OF WAY AND LOVES YOU ENDLESSLY
(oops she didn't tell you that yet did she?)
AND I ALREADY KNOW YOU DON'T FEEL THE
SAME WAY BECAUSE YOU NEVER DO AND
I DON'T EVEN KNOW THAT GIRL BUT IF SHE IS
ANYTHING LIKE ME LIKE YOU SO OFTEN CLAIM
THEN pLeAsE dO nOt bReAk hEr
sHe dOESN'T DESERVE IT SHE DESERVES TO BREATHE
OXYGEN NOT CARBON DIOXIDE SHE DESERVES TO
GET HIGH OFF OF HAPPINESS AND NOT AN ASHTRAY
SHE DESERVES A FOREVER and you will never be able
to give it to her, because forever will never mean
the same thing to you.

(h.L.)
i actually like this one
heather leather Sep 2015
your favorite color is not blue you lied to me, it is instead
a deep shade of grey so dark it is almost black and your middle
name is not poetry it is dececption it is let's take a break it is
not honesty instead it is cheating it turning the tables so that i think
i'm wrong when i'm not and you cannot just apologize with
the same sad smirk that you always have and think it is okay,
you cannot just turn your pain into poetry and think it's
okay because it isn't; it's not right to fake the color of roses on
your skin and then call me at midnight and talk to me as if you
were dying when you're not and you told me your star sign
was cancer but guess what you lied about that too because you
do not have a star sign you cannot be predicted by other
people who think they know how to read the signs of space because
you are an asteroid and i mean that with every sense of the
word and i do not want to be tied down by you because even
if i am a shipwreck that does not mean i need your anchor
because i don't i don't i don't so you can take your misery
and your sorry excuse for love and give it some other girl who
doesn't know any better

(h.l.)
tHIS ****** OOPS
heather leather Sep 2015
His first love should've been basketball and his second, girls
because his name was Juan and he represented the white, red
and blue bandera, Dominicano puro cien porciento del capital
entiendes compai?
understand homie?
and that label meant that he threw empty beer bottles
at abandoned houses and smoked second hand ****
because he was too broke to buy from the good dealers
and he hollered at girls with wide hips and short skirts that walked by
(oye mama tu si eres linda ven aquí!)
they would giggle and roll their eyes at him but of course
because he was one of those light skinned boys, the type
with light eyes and smooth brown hair that every girl dreamed
about, they would holler at him back the very next day
//
His first love was basketball and his second, was not
girls, his second love was words; it was the craziest ******* thing
in the world, to be a boy and not be crazy over women is one
thing, but to be Dominican and not in love with every muchacha
en el Barrio es una cosa de los maricones! as his best friend
would say as he shook his head disappointedly, muthafucka had
the finest beauties the Caribbean had to offer swooning as he
spoke, and he was in love with palabras de los gringos? but it didn’t
matter, he loved words like the junkies loved drugs and like
his best friend loved women, and while every other sin verguenza
on his block would dance to the hypnotizing beat of merengue and
bachata, he would watch by on the roof of the abandoned building
nearby and he would write it all down: how the lights of the neighborhood
had never seen more alive and how old man Victor looked youthful
dancing next to the neighborhood ***** and how his mother
looked happier than she had in a long time, swaying her body to the
calming voice of the old music she hadn't head in a while and
yes he was still the boy that threw beer bottles at abandoned windows
and smoked second hand **** because he was too broke
to afford the real stuff and he still hollered at girls who wore
shirts too low but in the shadow of all the happiness up on the roof,
he was not Juan, best basketball player on the team,
Dominicano cien porciento y no te lo olvides,
repping the white, red and blue bandera
instead he was Juan, the light skinned boy who liked the
palabras de los gringos because of the way they rolled off his tongue
and he had decided that he liked it better that way

(h.l.)
“Dude, you don't want to be dead. Take it from me. No-***** is bad. But dead is like no-***** times ten.”
― Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Sep 2015 · 1.4k
semi-automatic
heather leather Sep 2015
my fingers are bleeding from writing words that i never
meant and my throat is sore from the words that i never spoke
and nothing ever seems to take up any space my mind is now
just a landscape of thoughts i never wanted to think and
flowers that seem to always wilt
//
if i were to count the scars that line my body,
that number would be sixteen
sixteen years of being misunderstood sixteen
years of not knowing the difference between bad
and good sixteen packs of cigarettes in sixteen
different months i turned sixteen last week
and a storm called insecurity was by my side
and it continues to rain
//
the cord from the phone hangs aimlessly and the kitchen
sink overflows with water that i should turn off
but there are a number of things that i should do that i
don't there are a number of things that should haunt me
but instead they choke me into believing i am okay when
i never am and i do not know if i prefer burning alive
or drowning anymore i do not know if i prefer the
suffocating sound of silence or the deathly drum of your
voice in my head anymore because either way i am
a basket case and i try to run away from things i cannot escape
so i let anxiety swallow me whole and find consolation
in being semi automatic  


(h.l.)
semi automatic by twenty one pilots
Aug 2015 · 640
sirens
heather leather Aug 2015
i know that you live for loving things that will never
love you back i know that you were never afraid of swimming
because you could drown, you were always afraid of
swimming because you didn't want to float and i know that
you do not live for loving people who will love you back
and that in a month's time i'll be walking down your
street and saying i don't care and the city lights and car
sirens will be enough to drown out the truth: i love you and
i don't know if i will ever stop

(h.l.)
short and bad oops
heather leather Aug 2015
my meds are missing my pills are gone the
windows are closed the curtains cover them and i cannot
see the lightning but i can feel in in my bones,
i cannot feel my heart beating instead i see you in my soul
and i was supposed to go to sleep a long time ago
but the silence pumps my blood it feeds my insomnia and
gives it hope i wish i could stop thinking i wish i
could stop thinking thinking about your smile and the
way you laugh when you fall and the windows are closed
this room is soundproof but that doesn't stop me
from hearing thunder because it reminds me of you and
i'm still scared of storms and the color grey
but i'm finding out that loving you comes with the price
of living in shades of grey; the flowers in my brain they died
the day you said you loved me and stopped meaning it
(when did you stop meaning it?) so i live my
life in shades of blue each one darker than the last and
everything is blue; my tears, your ink, even the walls of my
room look like they've had their heart broken by you
and my meds are missing, my pills are gone the windows
are still closed although it doesn't matter because i
can still hear the thunder in my head, it is almost as loud
as the silence that fills my room instead

(h.l.)
so many song references
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