Every story I write
has a quiet boy who loves words
and a girl he doesn’t quite understand.
She has a laugh that ricochets
and she makes the quiet boy smile.
She looks like algebra but is more like calculus.
She is deceptively hard to solve.
You don’t see her fault lines until you think you already know her,
but her plate tectonics only cause aftershocks,
never full earthquakes.

I always thought she was me,
always thought I wanted to be
that kind of captivating.
Enough to make the quiet boy happy.
But then I met you
and your quarter moon smile.

I always thought the girl was from some coast
but the first time I saw you in a bikini
I realized you don’t have to be from California
to have drops of seawater glow like individual suns on your skin.
I want you to drip dry
on my clothesline arms.
I’ll hold you up to the sunlight,
let your bare legs dangle in the wind.
I want to straddle your fault lines
and hold you through the tremors.

I always thought I wanted the spotlight
but I’m content
being the quiet one beside you.
I thought I loved the boy who loved words
and I wanted to be enough to inspire him to write
but you make me want to get published just to share you
with the world because
something so beautiful should not be kept secret.
You said you wanted to make the history books
and you will, but for now
I hope my poems are enough.
You are rainy day inspiration.
I thought I was the girl
but it turns out I’m just a quiet boy
who needed someone to
inspire me.

i am not strong enough
to bear the weight of your gaze.
i will crumble under your touch
as you shoot me
with your heartbeat bullets.
one word from you
will burn my soul
and i cannot
put up a barrier against the pain
any more
because you already destroyed it.
one of your beautiful kisses
will poison me
and the antidote i used before
no longer functions  
because you took everything from me.
i am not strong enough
to cope with your love.

there are spaceships above the new york skyline
and the news says they are stealing the stars.
i'm trying to fight them baby
i'm trying to save the stars that you gave me.
but i think it might be too late.
did you already take them back from me?
because i can't find them.
the sky is empty of your love-
only your hatred is left
in the form of spaceships above the new york skyline.
it was you who started the attack
wasn't it?
please stop stealing my stars baby.
they're all i have left of you.

you don't understand how long some people have been here
you don't understand the changes we've seen
you don't understand how much we've longed for the people to
be who they be
you don't understand how it breaks our hearts
to see such infighting
bought to our world from other pages
used to back biting
you don't understand, for us
that have believed from the start
that Hello Poetry was once a place
where we always laid our heart
we gave over our life to this place
we endured every change
when you see something different here
know we have suffered more than this strange
once upon a time
in an awesome time and place
when people googled
Poetry
they found this space
they found inspiration
they found laughter that never ends
they found confidantes and a place
to plant
a never ending garden of friends
So if you're from another site
drawn here by the skin of tooth
sit a while in our midnight garden
and I'll speak to you a truth

Hello Poetry has been my best friend
for over 5 years, and all the friends
I've found on here, they've danced beneath my laugh, and held onto me so tight
that if I ever fall so wrong, they'll make
it all right

And that's the saddest thing
about Hello Poetry today...
is that most don't try
to make true friends
really real friends
or interact with them
in any meaningful way

She was a writer.
The words on the page mirroring her innermost thoughts.

She was a thinker.
A whole universe of beautiful thoughts running through her head.

She was a fighter.
When all odds seemed against her she pulled through.

She was a lover.
She loved so purely and greatly even though sometimes it wasn't returned.

She was a carer.
She looked after those who were stuck in the dark and she helped mend their broken pieces.

She was a dreamer.
And she is my friend