I can feel those words
They are rising on my tongue
Like waves ready to crash against the shore.
I clamp my jaw shut,
Keep my tongue prisoner behind
A cage of teeth.

It's too soon to release them,
Too soon to feel them,
And yet they protest and scream themselves
Everytime i leave you,
Everytime I see you.

They are the constant reminder
of how fragile I am,
And how breakable this is.
It seems to me that you are always waiting
by the door,
Ready to leave at any moment.
And I will still be standing here,
Long after the door closes
Alone amongst the echoes of the words never spoken.

You keep me constantly at arms length,
You raise your guard at the speed of a blink,
I don't doubt you care for me,
I only wish i knew how much.
I don't doubt you will leave me,
I only wish I knew when.
So I can prepare.

You listened to my heart beating
And said it was so much quicker than yours.
Maybe so,
But your feet are far quicker than mine.

Tears are said to taste salty,
But I would never know,
For I wipe them briskly away,
So they'll never show.

Love is supposed to be healthy,
And give you all that you need;
Not stab you where it hurts,
And make your heart bleed.

Voices are of encourgement,
To boost up your day;
But now, all they do is spread rumors,
And no one knows what to say.

Nothing is right anymore,
And this world has turned to hell,
No one is safe here,
And even God isn't left to tell.

From the dimples in her cheeks
The way her lips move when she speaks
And the sway of her hips
The gentle security of her lips
Everyone's love is the love of all loves
Everyone's story is Romeo & Juliet

The way he looks when he's just woken up
Even if he knows, he still asks "What's up?"
The wrinkles in his forehead when he laughs
The calmness that takes over even after a crash
Everyone's love is the love of all loves
Everyone's story is Romeo & Juliet

The way time seems to just come and pass
Neverending and flowing through the water like bass
How the troubles seem to come to an end
Whenever you're with that one special friend
Everyone's love is the love of all loves
Everyone's story is Romeo & Juliet

I prefer to wear my heart on my collar just so you see it skip a beat each time you peck my cheeks

I wish I could connect my veins to your brain and my arteries to your fingertips so we know what we feel for each other

Sometimes it seems like we’re still trapped in an hour glass, must have been the closest thing we did to spending eternity together.

You let me cover every inch of you with finger paintings, just to show me it can be fun watching paint dry.

I like that you’re sweet in a weird kind of way, like ice cream in winter.

Sometimes I etch your name on the branches of winter trees, hoping I would hear it in the wind from summers leaves.

I like the way your hair sleeps on your shoulders, like your ears have been reciting bed time stories.

We’re like shoe laces in key holes, odd but a perfect fit.

Now and again I try to steal a little bit of cloud, I know how you get each time I get to nine.

But for now all I can do is jumble alphabets till I find a combination worthy of you.

sometimes it feels as if
I have too many milk teeth,
too many parts of me that belong
to a time when I climbed trees to touch the sky
and I swam in sunflowers
and fireflies -
to a time I have long since
painted in sepia tones,
long since pushed
to the back of my mind
with hands so tired
of being filled with splinters
- too many seeds
and not enough light.

there are too many parts of me
that I have placed underneath pillows,
that I have kept behind closed lashes,
that I have slept upon, waiting
for the morning to arrive and them
to be g o n e ,
replaced with coins that I could place
underneath the tongues of the dreams
that I could not ferry to my
frail realities.
but in the morning, they return -
one by one into my mouth,
daring me to speak them,
daring me to sing,
daring me to find someone who will listen.
         listen.

it feels as if
I have too many stories,
too many secrets,
too many sins and not enough space
for the words to fly out of my mouth
and into the world -
I have too many milk teeth
that I cannot remove.

and sometimes I think maybe that's why
I don't understand
    permanence.
I don't understand
    change.
I don't understand
    growing up,
    growing out,
    growing apart -
I don't know what it means
to stare at the sun
while your feet are moving forward,
only forward, never back.
because I have spent all my life
climbing on the shoulders
of mountaintops and moonstones,
and standing tall
was never an option.

sometimes climbing is tough
when my mouth gets too heavy
with overgrown memories
and I can almost feel myself cry out
"save me," can hear myself whisper
    "listen."
but pride and false bravery sew me shut
and I'm left to watch my bones
taken over by page-pressed petals
and old phosphorescence -
and it's in moments like these
that I stop climbing and think
maybe it's time for me to grow now,
on my own:
hands and legs
and lungs and heart,
spine and ribs and
collarbones, cranium,
and with baby teeth bared I am
blooming fire and gold and
facing the sun -

    smiling.

I am tired of flinching
at seeds being thrown into my soil
drawing them up to be bullets
and letting them pierce my skin.
I have kept every word in a safe
until I could tie them together
into a beautiful bow around my neck
letting each inadequacy hold my breath.
But i'm tired of this silence.
The echoing screams in my center
are resounding on the walls of my ribs
shaking the chains of each whispered lie.
I am shedding my thin skin
exposing my honest bare bones to every shot
I will live without fear
finding freedom in perseverance
finding freedom in passion