i'm sitting in my high school choir room
staring at the walls that have shaped me
words of those who love me ringing in my ears
how do i leave this place?
i always have had a habit of leaving things better than i found them.
but i've never been one walk away, so much as i've had to be dragged.
blink.
it's 4:30am in a one bedroom apartment in my hometown,
everything is different, but good.
i have learned what it means to let new people know you,
i have learned how to be a part of something again.
i hope they don't leave
please don't leave.
blink.
seven tequila shots deep with people who have known me since the day i was placed on this earth.
maybe family doesn't have to hurt.
maybe god has been trying to bring me back here since the moment i left.
is this what it's like to feel safe? i forget.
i'll take the healing, even if it's only for a night.
blink.
monday afternoon,
staring at the walls of my college music library
(music stopped being about singing a long time ago.)
i have learned about cognitive dissonance the hard way,
there is nothing left of me.
he took it all the day he told me he loved me but he wanted to shatter me
and didn't look back as he slammed the door.
it's true, i have a nasty habit of trying to leave things better than i found them
but the real issue lies in the fact that i've never been one to walk away
so much as i've had be dragged.

Hey God, I have a question.

Actually, I have a few.

Why do you like for me to be alone?

Why did you waste your time creating a person who is so unlovable that even her family walks away from her?

Why is it so **** hard for me love myself long enough for someone else to love me?

Why is it that the sound of my voice is always more important than the sound of my heart?

Why is it that when your other children mess up, it’s “everybody makes mistakes,” but when I do, it’s p r o b a t i o n.

Why is that term even allowed to exist?

Why does someone else get to determine if I am good enough to positively impact the lives of others?

Why did I spend $92 in cheap makeup to impress a boy who will probably never love me back?

Why do I bite my tongue when I need to speak and release my wrath when silence should be held?

Why is everyday a test to see if I am deserving to be on this earth?

Why am I forever and always on probation?

i got pulled over for speeding on my way home tonight and the first thing i thought of was you

it reminded me of a couple of years ago and how i was so busy running towards you that i didn’t see that you were trying to stop me.

i can’t stop thinking about how we got here

why are you in 400 miles away in a cold nebraska town while im still driving home twice a week to sit in the old choir room and rack my mind trying to remember how things used to be

you never told me

why’d you give up?

why didn’t you cling on for dear life until the forces of this universe ripped you from my hands.

maybe thats my thing. i always was the poetic one of the two of us.

I’m having trouble falling in love again and its taking everything i have not to straight up blame you for it

don’t come home

I’m still learning to be without you

Hey you.

Yes you. Fourteen year old blonde girl with her eyes on the floor and the world in her hand.

Why are you looking around an empty room waiting for something beautiful to happen?

Don’t you know how brilliant you are?

You don’t have the perspective to know that one day you will rule the world.

You will fall in love again, and he still won’t love you back. Not the way you wanted him to.

You will glue yourself back together so many times that you’ll forget what it feels like to not have cracks in you.

You’ll be lonely more often than you’ll be in good company.

Music will begin to feel like oxygen instead of a vapid hobby.

Thicken your skin kiddo, but never be afraid to sob when Fields of Gold plays on the radio.

Look around the room every chance you get and listen to the sound a family makes.

Don’t let him take away the one thing you’ve ever been good at.

Go ahead. Curl up into your little corner of the world and cry for a bit. Nobody said it would be easy.

But stop for a second.

Stop running around like the world is ending.

Look in the mirror.

Really look.

Memorize the mascara tracks down your cheeks and the look in your eyes that says “There must be something better than this.”

Keep it in your back pocket when you’re out ruling the world.

So that one day, when a fourteen year old blonde girl with the world in the palm of her hand comes to you with tears in her big eyes.

You can say,

“Baby, don’t you know how brilliant you are?

Take a look around the room, and make something beautiful happen.”

They say that distance makes the heart grow fonder.
So I gave it a week
Then two
Then a month.
And I waited for you to grow.
I thought you would blossom
Not wilt.
So here I am
Sitting shotgun in your jeep
Just like I did when we were saving the world
When we had something to work for, something to hold us in place.
But all I can feel is the distance.
It's not quite 500 miles yet
But it's not 14 inches anymore either.
And all I can smell is her perfume.
Floral.
Like she was intertwining herself in you.
So maybe it wasn't that you weren't growing.
You were.
But You were growing towards her
And that meant growing away from me.

this is an angry poem
and like you've always wanted
this is about you.

this poem is every conversation we never had.
it's every time i stood backstage in my little black dress and prayed to God that we would make it through one more show.
its the day i watched movies with your mom and sister because you had better things on your to-do list than me.
or how when you fell asleep in my car
i drove you around our city for hours until practice started
because i know that even superman needs a break.
but really
this poem is about how you never would have done these things for me.

and another thing:
prom night.
and how i will never un-resent you
for letting me cry in the bathroom
until your ex girlfriend came in
and put her hand on my shoulder
and told me she knows how i feel.
as if she knew exactly where we stood
in that moment
so i thanked her
because i sure as hell didn't.

i spend a lot of time thinking about us now.
and how in thirty three days, 489 will be the number that defines us.
and i don't know how i can be angry with you for going to college
(for not taking me with you)
but i supposed in a year i will be where you are now and i'll do my best to understand
how you've always been one step ahead of me.

i realize that you're not going to change.
you will always be so deeply engrossed and infatuated in your reputation that you will never ponder the idea that you might not always be right.
and let me just tell you,
nothing bothers me more than the fact that if you were reading this right now all you would point out is my improper use of the second person.
and i would have to agree.

and this is why i'm sitting here right now racking my mind trying to find things to be angry with you about.
because i know a battle with you is a war i'll never win
so why fight.
and how all i've been saying to myself since you walked across that stupid stage is
"we've done a good thing here."
because i choose to believe that every time i put on that little black dress and helped you roll the lint off your black shirt, it was worth something.
and every time you looked at me from across the **** choir room and i knew you were just as in this as i was, it meant something.
and every time we pushed our own hearts out of the way to lead this army together, it was for something.
it was.
and yes, i understand that this is all up to me now and that's okay.
just promise me one thing.
you won't destroy any more hearts while trying to save the music.

and by the way.
thanks for forgiving me for all the things i didn't do.
this is my first angry poem about you,
and my last.
because you have a new town to save,
and i have a little black dress to put on.

You stood there alone
Broken heart clutched in your hand
Everything you knew shattered on the floor before you
You scanned the room
You looked at me helplessly
Now what?

So I took your hand and off we went.
That was the summer that I learned you.
Your heart,
Your mind,
And their constant battles.
But little by little,
Your broken pieces slid back together.
And I had never been so reckless,
As to cut myself on them as they did.
You were a part of me now.

I blame it on the music.
The way we fell in love,
It was to the beat of our own drum.
It was the way you looked at me
When our part of the song played.
Or how we danced in our classroom kingdom.
And kissed all of our own rules goodbye
As we naively and boldly,
Kissed the familiar passion
Hello.

Then I blinked
And I could've sworn that you'd be here when I opened my eyes
But life doesn't work like that
Time doesn't work like that.
And now you're gone.
Broken heart clutched in my hand
And I'm standing here alone
Everything I knew is shattered on the floor before me
Now what?

You love haiku poems
I only love being free
Love is different

I am not carrying the plague.

I am carrying the key to the future of music.
It slowly opens many doors.
The voices will crumble, should I lose it.

I am carrying a bulletproof shield.
Defending shots fired from sometimes the enemy,
But mostly from my own army.

I am carrying a pair of shoes.
With me, they have walked through the storms
And danced in the rays.

I am carrying a little light.
Although somedays it doesn't shine,
I call it Hope.

In my life, I am carrying many things.
Yet I am grateful,
For I am not carrying the plague.

Don’t you dare look at her like that

With those ocean eyes overflowing with love, with hope.
Don't let your lips curl up into that half smile 

Like you have three words you’d like to sputter out

But you can’t.

Don’t fall through the windows to her soul

Her’s are brown and bitter

Mine, blue and blissful 

Don’t let her beauty and the butterflies fool you

Because once you look at someone that way

There’s no going back

So don’t you dare look at her 

The way you’ve always looked at me

We ride in the car
Just like always
Your eyes scanning the road
And mine fixed on the horizon
Or on you.

And just like always
On comes our song
And just like always we sing along
You fumble over the bridge
I'm friends with every platform of it
You laugh, because the words don't matter.
Not to you, anyway.

Your lips released her name, yet again.
And for a moment, my sealed lips unlocked.
Out came lashing and biting words on that day.
And you fell silent.
When all I really wanted to know was:
Do you two have a song?
Do you stumble for those words too?
Every **** time...

Though she's beautiful
Outgoing
Abundant
Honest
I'm the one you always choose
I have so little to offer you
And she has so much.
Yet I know one day you'll listen to our song and you'll hear the words.
But by then, it'll be too late.
We'll be too late.

The thing about loving you
Is that I don't love all of you.
I don't love:
-Your arrogance
-How you push me away to look cool
-The way you get away with everything
-The look in your eyes that almost shows me your heart.

But here's the other thing about loving you,
Everyday I love something about you that I used to hate.
I love:
-Your passion
-How you make fun of the things I used to be so insecure about
-The way you'd do anything for what you love.
-The look in your eyes that almost shows me your heart.

So I guess that makes the score for the day:

You: 1
Me: 0

And eventually, I guess, the score will be:

You: All of me
Me: All of you

I'd like to buy a year.
A year for us, and us alone.
A year to realize what we've been missing all this time.

I'd like to buy a kiss.
A kiss for us, and us alone.
A kiss that ignites our somber and dreary souls.

I'd like to buy a song.
A song for us, and us alone.
A song that plays on through the brightest days and the darkest nights.

And lastly:

I'd like to buy a vow.
A vow for us, and us alone
A vow that will not be broken.
A vow that thinks a year is forever.
A vow that intrigues an all night kiss.
A vow that insists that a song never ends.
And knows that we won't either.

A new place but a familiar face
A chilled pace but a warm embrace
The elegant flair of a persistant stare
Crushed this brief and beautiful love affair.

I always look up
Fourteen inches
That is the distance from your love to mine.
It's far, this I know.
But maybe that’s good.
Because I don't need a hero,
I need a challenge.

Sheets rustled and bare feet brushed,
Real life vaguely flickers in the back of my mind.
Because all I want is to discover you.
Like learning the words to an old favorite song.
All is you.
Your fingers wrapped tightly around mine
Like you never expected it
Like the friction never even occurred to you
Wool igniting my cold skin
Sparks flying
Silent sparks
Love bigger than I'd ever seen
Arm across my waist
With nothing but the straining city lights and the bitter cold air on our side.
And together we walked those frigid, familiar streets of Denver as if they were the alleys of our intangible San Francisco