I want to tell you I could love you.
I could make you happy.
I could make you fall apart on the
bedroom floor,
helplessly and desperately proclaiming
that our love was more
than the nights of
raised arms and oceans of threatening depths.

But fifteen is an age when all of this
is just a dream,
a cliff where the jump is even more
dangerous than everyone says it to be.
Fifteen is the age when I believe,
that my hands have grown rough enough
to take yours
and maturity and age
have always been our similarity.
But fifteen is just another name for
"You're too young."

I cannot promise you that a wedding ring
would worth more than
the freedom to love the women
of taller heights and wider hips
for their lipstick is much darker
than the lip balm I use to
smoothen the dried skin.

For I do not know what it is like
to slide the glass between my fingers
and to taste the golden bubbles
freeze my teeth.

I do not know how to light a cigarette
or how to inhale the scent and death of rebellion.
I do not know how to let the ashes fall
unto the tray without burning my skin
and dirtying my nails.

I do not know how to make you want me,
how to dress and turn my curves
into mountains you wish to explore.
I do not know how to turn my tongue
into a weapon much deadlier
than the wind.
I do not know how to make you
feel beautiful.

So with all of the worlds streets, corners and
dimly lit bars,
I am nothing but a little pigtailed girl
with a lollipop in one hand and a poorly written
love note in the other.
And there you are,
as tall and as handsome as I've always seen
you as
with no time to look down,
only straight ahead.

But I guess, thats okay.
The heels would never have fit me anyway.

Shallow relationships exhaust me.
Unpack the bags under your eyes
and let me stay a little while.

I think I maybe breathed
in too much of you and
now you're trapped in my
lungs, clawing to get out.
But I can't
I can't I
can't

Thank you
for letting me hear the saddest songs and making
me understand that even sadness can be beautiful;
for letting me see the world as it is: cruel and how
it's filled with dark souls and beautiful city lights;
for letting me taste the sweetness of slow kisses
and the bitterness of first heartaches;
for letting me touch the deepest depths of my
heart i never knew existed;
and for letting me smell so many red roses
and teaching me not to ignore the thorns.

Thank you
for showing me beautiful pain and
poetic sadness, but for now,
goodbye.

I'm off to find someone who'll let me hear
happy songs next.

you always tell me that
life is long but I'm not
sure it's long enough
for us to find our way
back to each other.

It’s 4:27 AM on a Thursday.
You say I have so much left to give,
even if I have no one to give it to.
I wish I had more to
[these pieces don’t fit]
even if you don’t want any of it.

It’s getting colder outside,
I just keep thinking
more about [ ]
I just keep thinking more
about you.

You were a lot of things for me,
you were an anchor in
you taught me to
but you were never mine.

There are no oceans left
in my fingertips.
Your eyes have

and that’s okay.

[nothing fits]

It’s 5:13 AM on a Thursday.
I’ve figured out how we’re different;
you’re doing okay without me.

I tried writing the other day,
but you took everything when you left.
I was never a writer anyways,
I was just in love with you.

Please stop wasting your prayers on her
quit wishing he was a better version of himself.
His father never taught him it
was okay if every kiss
didn’t taste like cherries.
Don’t blame her because her
mother never told her
every one’s hands weren’t as soft as hers.

I want you to remember
the ending of every fairytale
you heard before going to bed.
Not everyone’s parents
prepared them for the worst.
Instead generations of humans
have been taught to expect everything
to find its place in the end.

Not every boy you meet
will incite fireworks behind your eyes.
Some boys take everything you
have because they weren’t
taught any better.

Not every girl you meet
smells like chrysanthemums.
Some smell like every
pain they’ve accumulated in their life.
A mixture of ash
and tar
washed down with a shot of whiskey.

I’m sorry your father forgot
to tell you that
sometimes kisses feel
like splinters.
He kissed your mother
and forgot
that not everything tasted
as sweet.


I’m sorry your mother didn’t
let you feel more
than the softness of her hands.
It isn’t her fault,
her mother didn’t either.

I want you to remember
the ending to every fairytale you
heard before going to bed.
This world is not a magnet
it doesn’t glue itself back together.
Remember every kiss that tasted like cherries
and how full your heart felt
when holding your mom’s hand.
Remember these things,
it makes everything easier
in the end.

you

slow



          down



                            time,
­
make me notice

the
soft
things

that otherwise
I wouldn't see.
like the

cracks on the
back of your
hands and

your end-of-
the-day stubble.

thank you for
making me
pay attention.