From the time I was a little girl,
I feared love.
I had seen my parents fight
and I thought to myself that
no man was worth it.
No man was worth being
slammed to the ground.

As I grew older,
boys tried to pursue me
and I put up my guard,
thinking that if love is
having bruises all over your body,
then I do not want it–
not even a little bit.

However, when you came around
you showed me something new.
Not every man is my daddy.
In fact, you are the man that my
daddy wishes he could be.
All my dad wanted was to show love,
but he never knew how.  

You radiate the sun
and make me feel loved.
You make me feel beautiful
and special and happy.
You are the reason I love
love and I do not fear it.
I crave it.

A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
I wanted to say,
lock yourself in a room,
scream until you have
a poem and no voice.
Open your veins and bleed
until you know that your bones
are pure words and sorrow.
Act as if you slit your own throat
and all you can bleed
are your own regrets
and all of the darkness
you boxed up for inspiration.
Write your mom a letter,
tell her you're leaving
and you won't be back for awhile
Because being a writer is traveling
through all seven layers of Hell
and denying anything is wrong.
Forget loving yourself
when all you have is a pen and paper
fused to your wrist
and Jesus is tapping at your skull
saying turn back now.
Warn the neighbors that if they smell burning
It's just your soul
clawing at the front door trying to get in.
Learn how to be alone.
Learn how to lose everything you have
in order to feel release,
learn how to only feel deceased
from now on.
A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
All I said was
don't

grief isn't sadness
grief isn't pain
grief isn't something
that words can explain

grief is an ocean
grief is a flood
grief is like having
your feet stuck in mud

yet grief is a stronghold
grief is a rope
grief holds onto you
when life's lost all hope

grief means it happened
grief shows it was here
grief is the proof
that love's never fair

Every time I touch the void
Do you feel a tremble, a stir?
Every time I paint it with a whisper of color
Do you see a shift within?
If not, at least I've tried.
Perhaps I’m not the one you seek.