I can still hear his voice in my head sometimes;
whispering stupid jokes and telling me that
it would be alright,
I can still feel him in my heart actually,
at night mostly because that's when we would talk the most
we would talk about whimsical things and make
jokes out of our lives
although thinking about it now, I think we made those
jokes to keep from crying
//
when they were cleaning out your room this morning,
they found your box of toothpicks
I remember you would always have an orange toothpick
I asked you why one day and you
never responded
I guess I'll never know the answer now
//
the worst part about all of this is that
I still call you, when I'm upset or when I want to hear your voice
but all I hear is static on the other line,
I wonder if you can hear me panic from the other line
because all I ever hear is your voice mail in my head and
it's so inaccurate because whenever I would call you
your voice would still be thick and groggy even if it was
5:22 pm which was coincidentally the first time
I told you I loved you
//
I can still hear his voice in my head sometimes;
whispering stupid jokes and telling me that everything was okay
the ironic part is that everything isn't

To tell the truth I don't think that I ever really loved you
And God that sounds horrible
but its true
I think that I fell in love with the feeling of love
if that makes any sense
I fell in love with my heart pounding and my blood rushing to my veins
and that wonderful sensation of elation that happened when I saw you
I fell in love with being loved
And God that sounds horrible
but its true
I fell in love with the short poems you'd send me and in all honesty,
I fell in love with your words
not you
I think that I loved you
but I was never in love with you
if that makes any sense
So, why, do I still feel agony when I hear your name?
Why does my head start to pound when I see you?
After all,
you were only one of my abandoned stories
with a beautiful start
and as always--
a tragic ending

he told me,
with a confident voice and alluring eyes that he loved me
he said that it was me and him and the music against the world
and even though i promised myself it was only
one drink; i knew then and there
that i had sold my soul to the green-eyed boy
who lit a cigarette the first day we met
and my heart next
ii.
sometimes when people tell stories of drugs,
they forget to mention the ones that live
across the street and dress in all black and
roll joints even with their cousins in the car,
“because a good song came on”
no one ever warns you about that type of addiction;
the warring kind that not only messes with your
body but also with you mind
or at least he did to me
iii.
i only wanted to have one drink, i swear
but somehow the lines between one and five were crossed
and even though i don’t remember anything, i
have no regrets because i was happy
we were dancing, the music was loud, the people were fun
and i was so happy; i don’t think i even knew what happiness was
before that, before staring into your eyes at midnight and
knowing that i was your only one
iv.
if i’m telling the truth,
somewhere deep in my heart; I knew that
you were already gone from me,
that you were never going to be the same after that night
and neither was i; because at that point
you were addicted to the feeling of nothing
and i was addicted to you
v.
i was only trying to catch up to you,
that’s all i really wanted to do, catch up
because i knew if i didn't you would find another girl who could
and i couldn't have that
so i drank and i smoked the night away except
this time it didn't feel as good,
it was sickening
but i smiled anyway because you said that i look
pretty when i smile; even though it was fake
vi.
we live in different worlds, you and i,
although at the end of the day it was the same thing
because even though we were addicted to two very different things
i can see myself in you; and it should scare me
but it doesn't because i had already
sold my soul to the green-eyed boy
who lit a cigarette the first day we met
and my heart next

live fast,
die young,
be wild,
and have fun
(it’s not that much fun anymore)*

(h.l.)

I found myself back on your street today I had
lost a part of my soul last night when left me i was crying
you were yelling and it was all too much to handle and
i came back to retrieve it but it seems to broken into
too many pieces for me to fix myself
3 AM and i'm sure my parents are wondering where i am
and i'd go back home if i only knew where i was
the pieces of me lie in the trees where
we had our first kiss and i know i shouldn't go back
to missing you like before but i still let you in when
you knock on my bedroom door and i swear to myself
that i'll change the locks on my heart but you always
seem to find the key and i'm sick of falling into an abyss
when i remember our last kiss it was on 6th street under
the lampost and i'm sorry because i remember how
it felt to love you and i hate you because i still do
you broke down my every guard and defense and
now i'm questioning if it was in all in vain 'cause i can't
bring myself to care about anything anymore
i am just a shadow of the girl you used to love and
the raindrops have stopped fall from my eyes but
the real storm lies at midnight when i sleep without you
by my side
3 AM and i'm sure my parents are wondering where i am
and i'd back home if i only knew where i was
my heart is crumbling in my chest there doesn't seem to be
an antidote for the poison you have filled me with
so i go back to your street and reminisce on what it meant
to be me and i search for the rest of the pieces of my soul
but they seem to be scattered across the globe and
if only distance could mend me then i swear i'd become
a pilot and run away from the voice in my head that
tells me you love me 'cause i know it's not true
but i can't runaway when all i see is your face so i go
to the bar drink my life away try to fill the void
in my chest, avoid the bartender 'cause i'm sure you're
still friends with him
3 AM and i'm sure my parents are wondering where i am
and i'd go back home if only i knew who i am

(h.l.)

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?

it feels like the feather of a bird;
so light and airy like
when you're walking down the street
and someone bumps into you
you praise every higher power out there that
you didn't collapse because
you're just so small and everyone
else tells you that you're so pretty
but you don't feel pretty you just want
to go back to the old you but
that's impossible because the feeling of swallowing
something scorches your throat as if there's acid
in it and the feeling of substance in your stomach
scars more than any stretch mark ever could
and big sweaters become your best friends because they
cam hide your weight and when you're tired of everything
you just swing by park and engulf yourself with a big
sweater even though you wish it could be human touch but
you haven't let anyone touch you in 3 months because then
they'd see how hollow you are and somewhere in
the back of your mind you know this is a problem but you
don't want to admit you have another problem,
so instead you let big sweaters swallow you whole;
and you keeping cursing every time that guy on the
street comes around because if he bumps into you with
that basketball you might shatter
and you've already done so much,
and everyone thinks you look so pretty
that's all you ever wanted to be, pretty

*do you feel pretty now?

if you saw him on the street
you wouldn't glance twice
because he does not look extraordinary
and he does not make your heart
skip a beat

but
when you listen to the wonderful, tinkling sound
of his laughter
and his inexcusable, almost inappropriately funny remarks
and when you happen to be lucky enough
to catch him smiling when no one is watching; he makes
your head spin

he is not the most beautiful to the rest of the world
and his eyes do not compare to the brightest of stars, his
hair is not an ocean-type mess and his freckles are not like grains of sand

instead his eyes are like like warm hot chocolate when
you are barely awake and are trying to get through the day, his hair is the
disaster that you can't help but be captivated by and his freckles are like carefully placed light orange dots that seem to connect in a way

I do not see him on the street anymore--
and that is the reason that I no longer
drink hot chocolate and why I hate the color orange
because god, he was not the most beautiful boy in the world
and he wouldn't make a stranger's heart beat twice
but he made mine
and in the end,
that was all that really mattered

i forgot your birthday
it was in may and i was only reminded
today when i was looking through my pictures
and so the one that we took last year,
i laughed at first because i looked ridiculous;
my hands were awkward at my side and my hair
was a disaster because of the wind but that
didn't matter because you held me tight anyway and
i cannot help but be brought back into the moment-
your hands intertwined in mine and my head leaning on
your shoulder and i remember being so excited to
watch this movie although at the end i can't even tell you
what happened because i was too busy looking at you
and you noticed because you would roll your eyes
and tell me to stop starting at you, but i couldn't
and i can't now, i can't stop staring at you in this motionless
picture, i can't stop thinking about how happy and naive
and ignorant we were i can't stop obsessing over
that dimple in your left cheek i can't stop loving you
and even though i forgot your birthday i think i cried
more today than i ever have because my worst fear
is coming true, i am slowly forgetting you and
soon you will just become another story i tell to my friends
mindlessly to waste time, i will never again have the chance
to stare at you in a poorly lit move theater and i
will never again be afraid of being caught,
what we have is completely over and i know that there is
no hope for me to hang on to anymore because i didn't call
you on your birthday and you didn't call me today, on mine
(h.l.)

they said that everyone else but me could see the light
that held faith, and love, and hope
and i told them
*then consider me blind

you always said your favorite color was blue
Like the sky crashing into an ocean at midnight
your room, it was painted blue like easter eggs we used to make and then end up throwing them at each other
the walls that you put up around you, I liked to think of them as blue
but not like the sky crashing into the ocean or the easter eggs
your walls I liked to think of them as a shade of blue that was so dark it was almost black
my favorite color was always black, go figure, our friends they would call us
black and blue
like the bruises I would get when you were drunk and it was late and you couldn't control yourself
you would always apologize with brownies, a lopsided smile, and a white letter laced with the early horizon blue

that was always my favorite shade of blue

when you had left me you had left me a card that was black laced with blue and it said that you couldn't stand to hurt me any longer
I understand why you did it but what you don't know is that I am still black and blue it's just on the inside now and after everything, what you don't know is that I would've preferred your version of black and blue
because in the morning I would get brownies, your lopsided smile, and a card with my favorite shade of blue
and now my mornings are filled with bitter disappointment, ashes of my gray heart, and and cards that are only black in the back of my mind

I like to think blue is still your favorite color and that wherever you are you know that black is still mine

he loves the way i drink my shots of whisky,
i love the way he stares at me in bed
the scent of cigarette love in the air and baby
this is just the beginning of the end
||
they say he's too cool to know me
i say i'm too young to care
because the way he drives all through
the night makes me stop and stare
||
he doesn't give a **** and his excuse is
he's young and so am i,
we're too reckless to live by the rules
and too hopeless to care about getting caught
||
he calls me bonnie i call him clyde
we love money and getting high
and if i die tonight
then give my money to my mother
and my regards to my father,
tell him i slit his throat in this dream i had
||
imagine our children,
how ****** would they be?
mommy's a ******,
daddy lives in a dream
there's nothing wrong with dreaming
though, it's the waking up that kills people
it's the waking up
that killed me

(h.l.)

we would throw pennies in the fountain
but never make any wishes and
our last goodbye felt like the sinking feeling i'd imagine the pennies felt          
when we threw them because it was so useless
you told me that you loved me even though
you and i both knew
it was a lie
I always knew it was
your love it was like a drug that was bound to break; a rubber band
that had been stretched and used far too many times
yet it was that same rubber band that I had around my wrist
and I never took it off because
even with all the lies and the excuses
all the drunken nights and
worthless apologies;
i loved you

in the songs that you would write the day after we had a fight
you would compare me to bottle caps;
the ones that you would so easily pop
but when you would write your songs you would compare me to
the bottle caps that reminded you of innocence
of your childhood
you told me that I reminded you of the bottle caps you collected
from the farmers market across the street
the same farmers market where we stained our teeth with stolen cherries
you compared me to the bottle caps that brought you happiness

i wish i could say the same

*i threw a penny today into the fountain
and made a wish;
to forget the sight of your smile when
it was stained with cherries

one, he has rosy red cheeks and doesn't
speak yet, he is too shy but his mother loves
him and his father already has dreams of a
baseball player in mind
three, his soft brown curls are becoming uncontrollable
and his aunts coddle him and sing praises about
his long eyelashes and he speaks with a stutter that his
mom thinks is adorable
five, he has a big birthday celebration and his father
buys him a puppy and the neighbors come over and all
of a sudden he is best friends with a boy named andy
who likes to play with red toy trucks and loves to watch sports
seven, his two front teeth have fallen out and he thinks
he looks awfully strange and his older sister makes fun
of him for it but it's okay because andy has a little
sister, she is six, and she thinks he looks perfect
ten, he is going to middle school and his father is already
practicing with him because he wants to join the baseball
team (he doesn't, not really, but his father wants him to so
he does it)
twelve, andy is the most popular boy at school and he still
hasn't made the baseball team and everyone makes
fun of him for it, but it's okay because andy's little sister
isn't looking so little anymore and she says he's better than
any boy at that school
14, high school has just started and he still has that slight
lisp from when he was younger but that's fine, he doesn't
talk to any one that much except her, hannah, who isn't just
andy's little sister to him anymore
15, he's in love with hannah and he doesn't think there's
anything more beautiful than her ballet routines and the
way she shakes her hips ever so slightly and everything in his
life is a mess because he's failing science and his older sister
comes home drunk every night and his father has started coming
to his room at night and he doesn't know what to do about
it but it's okay because he has her to make everything
better, his miracle was her
16, he finds out that she doesn't think she's as perfect as
he does and she complains about how ugly she is
and no amount of light kisses to her cheek make up for it
16, he sees the scars on her thighs one day and he asks
her what it means because he refuses to believe she would
do this and he beats up andy because he knew the entire
time and didn't care
16, he finally tells his mother about his father coming to
his room at night and she cries for her husband and her son,
for both seem dead now
16, hannah goes to therapy and she's finally getting better,
he thinks she's finally getting better
16, she's not
16, he attends his first funeral two months later, the girl he loves
being buried six feet underground and her brother isn't there,
he's at a party getting drunk and trying to forget her but he won't
16, he thinks about following in her footsteps
16, he tries
16, he can't
17, he does. he finds the rope his father used
when they would go climbing together and he wrapped
it around his neck and lit himself on fire, but no matter
how many times he screamed, it didn't matter because his mother
was in connecticut, knitting with her friends, and andy was
smoking and his older sister was at college and in the
end no one cared for the boy interrupted for he
was walking on an unfinished bridge his entire life and he was
bound to end up six feet under eventually,
all the good things in life were
(h.l.)

i think it's funny how you tell your friends that you got
rid of me, that i am only a memory in your past that i was
such a mistake that if you see me in the street you would
turn and run the other way,
i think it's absolutely hilarious because i still
find you reading my poems in class and reminiscing
and you still text me late at night begging for me to
respond, you still tell every guy with in a mile's distance
to stay away from me and every time i'm in church you
somehow find a way to corner me and attempt conversation
with me, i think this is all one big joke,
that you are one big entertaining joke because darling
i've already gotten rid of you, and trust me you
are only a memory in my past and honey if there was
ever one mistake i made it was lending you my scarf
after gym class, i want it back by the way
and you can spin the story in any way you want,
it won't matter because at the end of the day it is still
the same old game of you throwing rocks at my window
and me tossing them back

(h.l.)

when we were young we would
give each other candy hearts on valentine’s day with
cheesy smiles and bashful cheeks
and every little girl in 1st grade would measure their popularity
with the amount of candy hearts they would get but
I was always the one who would eat mine before I counted them

you were the boy next door with the hazel eyes and the crooked smile
you never talked to anyone but me and we would
laugh off everything wrong with our lives;
it was all a constant blur--
the music
the drugs
the drinks
i don’t even remember our first kiss but
it didn't matter back then
when we were young and restless
nothing mattered back then, it was only you and i and
the music

the day after you left i found a note on my bed,
it had a candy heart that said
‘i love you’
almost like a final sarcastic laugh,
to remind me that what we had, for you it wasn't real
it was the lowest, and most painful type of love
it was skinny love and
they say that there is no greater pain than death but
what a lie
because darling what we had was madness, it was torture, it was hatred and desire combined into one,
it was tragic, it was worse than death because it made  me want to die an infinite amount of times, it was both heaven and hell, it was temptation in it’s greatest form. it was love.
it was skinny
it was hopeless
it was doomed from the beginning but
it was love
(h.l.)

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.)

i've been 4 months clean or whatever they're definition
of clean is but i still crave you arms around my waist
and your whisper in my ear because what they never tell you
is that once your clean you also become cold
because you never want to risk falling in love and taking
the chance of becoming addicted;
it's so easy to become addicted
and so now i live in a world of black and white
with only bent polaroids and broken memories
to prove you ever existed
and maybe it shouldn't hurt this badly, maybe the consequence
of falling in love with you shouldn't pain me so but it does because
you had taken the same ink that you write poems with and
injected it into my veins and i've never been the same
since last july when you said that you loved me
and actually meant it,
i wonder; when did you stop meaning it?
was it the day you told me that you could never love
anyone or was it the day i told you that i didn't care

when people talk about falling in love, they always
make emphasis on the feeling, so i will say this:
falling in love with you felt like
injecting whiskey into your flesh and you like the
rush but you also feel the burn and you know
this will leave scars but you don't care because
*no one ever thinks about rehab

i still remember the days we would laugh
until our cheeks were red and
tears were streaming down our faces
those days are long gone now; i don't laugh that much anymore
you used to talk to me about how stupid everything was
i would agree of course, still not knowing then that
life was not the color of roses
(i've found out now that it is more the color of violets)

you always told me that you were a mess, a disaster, a ticking time bomb,
something waiting to
explode
i just never thought that i would burn with you
(i still have second-degree scars on my heart, in case you were
wondering)
and i would always tell you that you were a mess, a disaster,
a ticking time bomb
but that if you would ever try to go turn and run,
that i'd go and stop you
(but i ended up crashing next to you after the tornado had passed)

you still tell me you love me more, after we talk but i think
that we should cut the formalities and
try to lessen the fatalities

i always knew, somewhere deep in my heart, that you would crash and
burn
i just never thought that I would want to burn with you

(h.l.)

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.)

pretty blue eyes
they look at mine in
wonder or perhaps shock
i
bet
you
never
thought
you
would
see
me
again

he loved her because she was pretty
like the ocean and because her favorite color was black
he loved her because she was disaster enough to
leave marks on her skin and tears on her chin
he loved her because she was the poster child of anti and rebel
and because she bled onto paper in beautiful words

she did not love him because he couldn't understand that she
wasn't the poster child of anti she was just a misunderstood girl and
she didn't like being a disaster, she hated it
he couldn't understand that she bled onto paper for survival and that
her beautiful words tormented her
he couldn't understand that even if she was as pretty as an ocean on the outside
she was a tsunami on the inside

and
her
favorite
color
was
actually
a
very
dark
shade
of
grey

she didn't love him because he never really loved her

(h.l.)

i get intoxicated by the smell of
Sharpies at 2am and the sound of your voice
on the phone and you're so ******* tired but
you refuse to hang up first because of
some line you read in a book

we would be the perfect love story, we really would

because you're the one who laughs at my corny jokes
and you're the one who brings me chocolate when i'm sad
and you're the one who taught me how to write poems in a way
and
i love you so much but you must not see it

i thought it was a phase, i really did
and you probably think i'm over you
(because i told you that)
and sometimes I just wish that all hell would break loose
so that you could see how much you mean to me

*you always did have a thing for disasters;
blinding hurricanes of tears and imperfect tsunamis
of missed opportunities and lost love

a boy, on the corner of Confused and Lonely
holds a cigarette in his hands, unsure of what to do
but hopeful that it'll make him happy;
because at the end of the day that's all anyone
ever wants to be
a girl, lipstick smudged, sunglasses broken and wearing
a shirt that was much too small, her image screams help
but apparently the rest of the world is deaf when
it comes to these types of things
they meet at Sunset Blvd. where women wear
skirts high and the men get even higher,
she's stumbling home; not drunk, but not sober
and the boy asks her if she's okay, she says yes
he then asks her how to light a cigarette because
it's been a week and that pack is burning in his pocket
screaming to be used and he had watched
a commercial on t.v. the other day but it hadn't changed his mind
so here he was, desperate to find out how to
light a ******* cigarette because if he doesn't even
know how to do that, then what hope does he have?
she said one word, a whisper almost and if they
were anywhere else he might not heard her but
he does, he hears the word as clear as church bells
don't
he responds with the question they both have
why?
and she shakes her head and smiles, still
dazed from the alcohol in her veins and says simply,
"because," and maybe it's because she looks like a mess
and he's lonely and confused but somehow that because
turns into endless long reasons not to as they both
fall into each other, madly and deeply

he asks her on her last day, how to light a cigarette
his voice shaking, his intentions clear
she responds with a clear don't
he asks her again why,
and she says "because," but sometimes
not even that is enough

(h.l.)

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'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.)

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.)

do you remember what you said to me
before things became complicated
and before I realized
that I loved you.

do you remember our last conversation
that we had by ourselves
without our friends
and
without the tension of having to hide our feelings

do you remember our last hug
no one was watching
and we had both stayed that way
because we were both afraid to let go

do you remember that day
the first time
that you said I was beautiful
and that I should never think badly of myself

do you remember
the first poem that I sent to you
and
the first poem you had sent to me

do you remember
finding out that we loved
the same song
and
what you said to me when you saw me playing it

do you remember
telling me about your first love
and saying
that she could never compare to me

do you remember
when we were playing Truth or Dare
and you asked me
who was my first love


do you remember what you said to me
today
when we were leaving
and you gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek
and told me to love someone else

I still remember what you said to me before things got complicated,
I’ll never fall in love
I still remember our last conversation
You guys look so cute together
I still remember our last hug, it lasted forever and even though it’s gone
I swear I can still feel your arms around me
I remember when you told me I was beautiful
I said that was a lie, because I thought it was
I remember the first poem I sent you,
it was terrible but you said that you loved it
and
when I was playing your favorite song
you seemed to be in a daze and said
that it was a good song
Remember?
Remember telling me it was stupid; your first love
and that I was a thousand times more important to you
You told me you would hunt down and ****
my first love for giving up something so precious
I remember how I felt when you told me
to date someone else
It was as if somebody had blew out the faint candle inside my heart

do you remember
how it felt to be in love?

(h.l.)

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.)

the lines on the paper i'm writing on are becoming
so blurred
and i don't exactly remember what this
was even about in the
first place
all i know is that i had woken up at
3 a.m. and i tried to sleep but i couldn't because
you voice was clear as day inside my head and
it was driving me insane and now
here i am
writing about my sorrows
with green day on the radio and
that was your favorite band and oh ****,
now i'm thinking about you again
this always happens
god, what happened to me?
i used to be happy believe it or not
but now i'm pathetic,
now i stay up in my bedroom listening to old records
and crying all because of you
and even though i can't exactly blame you
i will say this:
you crashed through my like a tornado would
into a city; you give me the world and then turned me
upside down whilst i was still dangling
you were one of those hurricanes every one is afraid of
and yet somehow in awe of;
you felt me in the eye of a hurricane
and i am still drowning

"we are nothing but dust and shadows"
the drunk man said as he stumbled along
the streets with the burning sun scorching his skin
they all though he was insane
they thought he was certifiably crazy
and maybe he was
but he was also smart
he knew seven languages
and he had enough money
from the days when he actually worked to survive
he had a family, who loved him
but even that didn't stop him from
collapsing on the street and
dying because even though he knew
seven languages; none of them could speak to the dead
and he had money, yes, but only enough
to help him drown out his sorrows
with alcohol
and his family,
who lived him *so **** much
were the ones who had stolen most
of his money,
the ones who only dropped by when
they wanted more
they were the ones who had spat on his
grave and had said "good riddance"
in fact, they let him die in the streets,
his last words being
"we are nothing but dust and shadow"
as he closed his eyes, happy to be free of
such a miserable life

the sad part of it all was that he still saw
it, he could picture it in his mind, all of it
the flames, the burning of it all; the screaming
the shouts of leave right now, run, they're coming
he could see his mother escaping into the
painful abyss of death as she was shot, he could
remember her cries, her plead to leave her
alone, he could see it all and he could feel it too
he could feel chubby and familiar fingers
grabbing his and he could feel the ache of his legs
from running too hard and his lungs
felt like collapsing, he could feel the sense of chaos,
he could feel the weight of death pressing against him,
wanting him to give up, willing him to stop
but he couldn't because he could still see his seven
year old brother pulling him, he could still see
her even though she was five and he was just six,
he could see her as clear as the very image
of the burning, of everything and it willed him to fight, to
keep going, and so he did

(h.l.)

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.)

i.
I'm close to exit 95
and I'm halfway to freezing
but still too shocked to do anying about it
My head is pounding and I'm pretty sure I'll sleep and
not wake up until midnight tomorrow
But all I'm thinking about is how desperately
I want to exit
I don't know what I want to escape I just know that I do
That's a lie
I want to escape my mind but that seems far fetched
so for now escaping my life will have to do
ii.
Say Something just started
and I switched the station because I thought the song was cliche
That's another lie
That's the thing about me, I lie a lot
mostly to myself
I use to love that song
But now it just makes me think too much and
my thoughts are stars that are better left without forming
Constellations
iii.
I see a girl in a car and she's smiling
It reminds me of my innocence and how I use to smile
when did I stop smiling?
iv.
My phone rings again and I know its you because
no one else cares that much as to actually call me
my hands tighten around the wheel
and I'm finding it hard to breathe
and soon I'm crying and for some reason
I wish suddenly that I could drown in my tears
and let them suffocate me
v.
there is a car that's about to hit me
but I'm not worried about the pain because
pain is mental and I lost my mentality the second
I realized I was in love with--


(h.l)

and the flower crown you gave me
is in the garbage along with all our pictures
and any proof that you actually existed
because it does not seem fitting to me,
to keep flower crowns and hand-written letters
as if you'll come back or as if any of it actually
meant anything to you--
it does not seem fitting to me to keep a flower crown
when you did not keep me
it does not seem fitting to me, to keep a flower crown
when our relationship was based all on thorns

(h.l.)

"do you have anything to say to me?"

why don't you love me?

why aren't i good enough for you?

what did i do to you?

why did you abandon me?

you've never actually loved me like you loved him

was there ever a time i didn't disappoint you?

i wish i didn't need you but i do

i love you

i wish you knew how much you mean to me

why do you want to fix me so **** badly?

sometimes i feel like a stranger in this house

i know you regret me
i regret me

i don't know if i can forgive you
i hope i can

will i ever feel like when i was eight
when you'd give me piggy-back rides and smiles?

i miss you

i'm sorry i'm not the daughter you want,
nor will i probably ever be

why don't you ever let me explain myself?

why is everything my fault?

will this barrier between us ever break?

"no."

(h.l.)

you lit a match on my heart
told me your name was trouble from the start
and yet you made me believe that you were wrong about yourself
i still wonder what i would be like if i had known what
would happen from the start after all

darling, you taught me love was like a game of cards and
once you lose you should never play twice

the ironic part is that you've never made a bet and
yet you gamble with desire

and maybe we still would've made it,
after all you always did have a good poker face
oh but what a shame sweetheart you were nothing
but a mirage and hid everything behind a facade
and even though this game of hearts is long over; it ended like
a blaze leaving nothing but ashes in it's wake
i still think about how well you played and if it was all a lie
after all after a pack of cigarettes in and a bottle of gin
you never really had a good poker face maybe
if the tables were turned i would've won but i guess we'll
never know because you taught me that love was
a game of cards and once you lose you should never play twice

(h.l.)