I never understood why people compared
kisses to fireworks
until i knew what it was like
to want someone so much
that all you could feel inside you
were explosions.

I am literate in daydreams
and letting my imagination rule my head

I am literate in music
where rationale can be abandoned.

I am literate in procrastination,
pushing away my mind-defying.

I am literate in heartbreak
which has been already over-endured.

I am literate in lazy weekends
spent with my sister and a remote.

I am literate in creating;
not masterpieces, but heart and soul pieces.

I am literate in ramen noodle and green tea afternoons
in sweatpants and sneakers with no makeup on.

I am literate in moment-capturing
and finding the right words to explain.

I am literate in thunderstorms
and dancing in between water droplets.

I am literate in heart confessions
over acoustic guitars and games of solitaire.

I am literate in wanting
and taking away from what I already have.

I am literate in wanderlust
and a wholehearted need to escape.

I am literate in color-coordination and clothing arranging
and bringing out all my best.

I am literate in kissing with desperation
and wanting to have it be effortless.

I am literate in wasting my time
in my head, in my heart, and in the clouds.

I am literate in everything mentioned
and so much that I can’t even say.

In a perfect world,
I could hide my scars
until they finally soften
and fade,
and then the t-shirts could
adorn my shoulders
just like they did before.
I could speak my mind
with no resistance,
and I would not worry
about another's opinions
because all that would matter
would be me
and my thoughts.

But this is not Utopia
and my scars are still here,
and they burn searing red
for so long that
it's too much to hide,
and I slip up
and I wear short sleeves.
And I constantly fear
of what others will think,
with scenes in my head
sending me over the edge
into a place
where my thoughts can ****,
and I'm not in Utopia at all.

We come from the same gene pool,
but don't you dare tell me
that we can wear the same jeans,
because you couldn't hold them up.
You wouldn't be able to keep them in place,
to hoist up the weight of the world
that makes them so heavy.
Your size zero waist and thighs
couldn't handle the pressure,
couldn't handle the qualities
of life size pants.
Not 12 size pants.
Life size pants.
My whole life fits into the stretched out fabric,
the too tight button,
the zipper that struggles to crawl up its track.
These pants have seen days where I could slide in
and days where the squeeze was so tight
that I just gave up,
even when giving up shouldn't have been an option.
Holes have been torn,
rips have been stretched,
and yours have been fashioned to look that way.
Do not pretend that we could switch jeans
and be perfectly fine,
because you would be swimming,
and I would be missing.

When I was twelve,
my uncle told me that
when I got older,
I would only have enough
"best friends" to count on
one single hand,
and they would be the
best best friends I'd ever had.

And I can count my five
best friends,
but they are not
my best best.
Because they tug
and twist
and ****
and pull
on my heartstrings
in ways that could make
a grown girl cry;
and they do.

So I can tell you the names
of my best friends
that rip me to shreds
and throw my heart
onto a floor covered in
broken glass;
and you will be able
to identify the names,
because they might be your
best best friends, too.

Wanderlust
the beast to slay them all,
pushing my desire
and reinforcing my disability,
reminding me that I have
nowhere to go
and everything to see

Disorder
in my bedroom,
in my essays,
or in my brain;
all of them causing
someone (me)
to explode in a fit of
unwanted emotions.

Apathy
Towards my schoolwork and
busywork handed to me
by middle-aged "can't-do-so-teach-ers"
that need a handful of capsules
to numb the pull to leave
just as much as I do.

Dysfunction
in my brain's chemical makeup,
and my family's emotional one,
not to mention the relationships
I attempt to handle like a
one-handed juggler.

Imagination
creating scenarios in my heart
that could never come to be,
leaving me in a perpetual state of
disappointment.

So now I will tell
my nieces and nephews,
sons and daughters,
or countless grandchildren
to never trust the ones that
try to make something different
of your heart,
because they don't really love you,
they love what the can make you become.

I can feel you slipping away from me;
imagine what it’ll be like without you again,
because it’ll be different than not knowing you at all.
As I sit on my bed and write
I can feel the empty place next to me
where you should be playing with your iPod
and cracking jokes,
singing and rolling over on your back with laughter
after we sang a funny lyric.

I’m imagining lying here with you,
discussing and smiling and giggling over
my first kiss, and yours,
but somehow the memory
leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

I’m reliving you and him
and I, the one on the sidelines,
the one spectating while the game is being played.
And I’m not even keeping score, not even waving a flag.
I’m the invisible onlooker, the one who doesn’t want to be there;
the high school student stuck
at a basketball game because they don’t have a ride home.

And no, it doesn’t matter what you tell me,
how much you say that you don’t mean
to leave me out or keep me at bay,
here you are, doing it again and again and again.
And it doesn’t matter how much you apologize,

because I’m starting to get the feeling of being replaced.

If I could write a million love songs
none would compare to the sound
of you speaking my name in any
instance; be it love, anger, impatience,
seduction or hatred—no other sound
could possibly compete with your
bittersweet, heart-wrenching melody.

And she cried
because
the ones that she loved
could not see her
for the
cruel,
sick,
masochistic wretch
that she was.

I want to wake up next to you
all wrapped up in your arms
with your heartbeat against mine,
your breath in my ear,
and warm sunshine on blankets
to keep us warm.

i am not a book
that you can read partway,
set down
for however long you choose
and come back to the story
right where you left off.

i am not a photograph
that you can put in a book,
store on a shelf
until you remember that it’s there
and relive the partly faded
memory from before.

i am not a cup of coffee
that you can forget about in the morning,
leave on the table
until you’re done ******* your wife
and stick in the microwave
to heat back up.

i am a woman
that you can wake up and touch,
you can love
until it all falls to dust
because i’m all or nothing,
so pick a side.

I want to set someone's soul on fire
to be their first wondering in the morning
and their last thought before they fall asleep.
I want to be someone's 11:11 wish
or their dream on a shooting star.

I want to be someone's everything,
instead of the mid-way nothing that I'm used to.
I want to be the one thing they're afraid of losing
that they can't imagine their life without,
and I want to be their last first kiss.

I want to count the galaxies in their eyes while we lay together,
to start counting their stars but lose track because there are too many.
I want to sing their favorite song while we kiss
and trace our favorite words on their back;
I want to make them come alive.

Cold.
Everything is covered in
a piercing cold
that makes me bundle up
with the hope of giving up
and a couple warm breaths on my hands.
But sometimes,
there is a spot of heat in the air
that fully envelopes me
while I sit in the silence
wondering how this could be.
But I want, no no, I need to get out,
locked inside an Arctic display
of my head that they splay
on a mount that no one will see.
And all I need is a crack in control
for me to weasel right into and break
so I can breathe fresh air
and see what a laugh looks like again.

Silence.
The room is filled with
complete silence
except for the scratching and screeching
of the record on repeat
that is completely made up of my thoughts.
On occasion,
you can hear the drip-drip-dripping
of my tears as they hit the floor
or my hands pounding on titanium walls
but praying for a door,
because I want, no, I need to get out,
trapped inside this heartless cage
where all I am is filled with rage
and hate and resentment.
And all I need is a crack in the wall
for me to throw my back into and break
so I can see the light
and hear what a smile sounds like again.

The tell her that she has the world
at her fingertips;
she knows and understands and helps,
and loves and learns and gains
everything that she could
ever want.
They tell her that she can charm her way
through anything--
I mean, listen to her voice!
look at those eyes!
Tell me that they could not possibly
lure
you
in?

But what they do not know
is the strength of the string
that is looped around her fingers,
connecting the world to her hand,
letting it twist and twitch with every
flip of her wrist.
They do not know that the strings are
loosely-looped nylon,
slipping and falling and simply
requiring
so much work.
She cannot look away, and must always
readjust.

What they do not know
is how hard she works
to keep the world
at her fingertips.

Too many times
you've walked in and out,
contradictory to the
hook line of your persuasive essay
to win me over,
stating that you would
never
leave;
but you're no longer a constant,
no longer the gentle lull of the
waves against the coast
that send me into sleep at night-
rather,
you are the sporadic gusts of wind
pushing open my windows
and blowing in leaves and twigs
that mess everything up.

And you make it hard to say no.
You make it difficult to push
through the current and swim
back to shore,
because your pull on me is too strong
for my own good-
but I love the water,
and I keep going in for a swim
despite the inevitable fate of being
dragged down;
and I would normally swim in other oceans,
but there could be sharks below the surface,
and I don't even know if I could
get myself there.

Once upon a time, I was five years old,
and it didn't matter that my hair was so short,
that my glasses were big, and my socks would show;
asking questions made you curious and smart,
and your clothes didn't matter, because they'd get ***** anyway.

A few years later, I was eight years old
at a brand new school with a patch on my eye,
so I bought new clothes to make myself stand out;
but the only thing that worked was the one reading eye,
so I stopped being different and I started being quiet.

Another three years, and I was in sixth grade
with the same classmates and a new set of rules
where my clothes mattered more and my brain mattered less;
and the girls didn't like me 'cuz I never spoke up
and the boys all snickered when I tried to make a joke.

Now it is five years later, and I'm sixteen years old,
and most of them from junior high I don't see anymore;
but I still can't take compliments because I don't believe they're true.
After years of believing the ever-spoken phrase, I know that
sticks and stones do break my bones, but words hurt even more.

A box full of poetry,
a case full of whispered
words to a page
that I was too afraid
to speak aloud.

Because I am a coward,
drawing the line of verbal
self-expression where I know
that I am the most vulnerable

Instead, I speak to my pen and let it wipe and twirl
my secrets and heartbreaks
onto an empty piece of paper.

The paper is now tainted,
keeping and holding my thoughts
completely immortal, and somehow
rendering me even more helpless

I cannot control who reads
or who learns of my personal woes
and my selfishly written stories
of events that I couldn't control

So now I will quit the sappy prose
and continue to write things
that will inspire souls to jump,
sing, laugh, dance, and love.

Is troubled the word that people would use to describe me?
No; but I know that I would.
I am troubled by a constant sinking feeling
coursing throughout my whole body.
No, not sinking.
Drowning.
I tried to drown myself a couple of times when I was younger.
Not to die, just simply to feel it.
There was a burning fire in my lungs
and a resulting ache in my throat,
and my limbs started to go slowly numb
as the light from the top of the water
slowly receded behind my eyelids.

But then, almost against my will,
I went up.
I let myself float back to the surface.
Each time I went back, my life became more of a mess,
and I have always wondered why I couldn't just
drown already.
Just let myself slide down into the calm of the water
Just.
*******.
Drown.

I am drowning though. Every day.
I'm drowning in nothing, and nothing is drowning in me.
Apathy is beginning to take control,
and I'm trying to swim away to loosen its grip,
but it is clinging on and pulling me back down and
drowning me.
Burying me under water and waves,
stealing my breath and making me feel as though
I'm floating through nothing.

So I am a hidden troubled girl;
the feeling and the hurting and the scars
are all tucked away buried nicely underneath
my layer of clothes that no one even wants to take off.

I don't want sympathy--
that has never been my goal.
I do not want unrequited attention all the time,
and I don't want people to think that I'm afraid of being alone,
even though I am.
I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me,
I just want people to know.
I want people to see, and I don't want to lie
and fake
and masquerade
around this tiny ******* town anymore as if
I were the same as
everyone
else.

I am not the girl I seem to be.

I am a troubled girl--
let me be her.

Raindrops
Tap tap tapping
On the windowsill
Reminding me of
You letting me go.

Fresh sheets
Crinkling up and
Swallowing me whole
Sounding like the
Day you forgot about me.

New perfume
Engulfing me and
Surrounding my breath
Smelling like the
Night you kissed me and left.

Oldsmobile,
Driving around,
Scaring me to death
Looking like the
Hours that we wasted.

And we wasted
Aimlessly,
We kissed
Pointlessly,
Forgot
Regrettably,
And let go
Finally.

I'm starting to feel lonely
In my bones when I walk,
Like the aching you get
In the middle of winter.

The space in my chest
Is swelling in size,
Growing larger as it waits
For something extraordinary.

Because why else would I wait?
Starting year four
Of being alone again,
If it wasn't to move on to something life-altering?

My heart won't wait
For anything it doesn't need.

You put your arms around me,
And you smell like clean laundry
And a feeling that I'll never have.

You tell me that my hugs are the greatest,
And I smell like cherry menthol
And the best friend you've ever had.

So you hug me again,
And you're my favorite smell in the world,
But I just want to know how you taste.

If I told you
that your smile gives me tingles
and sends shivers up my arms
you would never look at me the same;

and I don't think that I could bear
to have you look at me like that, with
an estranged curiosity in your eyes.

So instead, I will admire you from afar,
pretending that your eyes meeting mine
mean absolutely nothing,

and that I don't love

everything you do.

There's so much to write about you
and so little time,
but that's okay with me,
because if the world knew everything about you,
someone better would come, and you wouldn't be mine
...not that you're mine anyway...
but if you were to come and stay,
not a day would go by
where I wouldn't die
simply to grab your hand
and run away.

But I digress...
When I think about you, my head-
no, my heart-
no, my head-
no, both!-
are a mess,
and I just want you to come in
with your kisses like a broom
and sweep me away to somewhere
better;
somewhere that they can't complain
or attempt to explain
or dictate,
because it's ours alone.

You're in my mind so often that sometimes
it seems so second nature-
so natural,
so factual,
like procrastinating my homework
until 11:58 on a Sunday night,
or making that cup of tea at 2am
that I know will hurt me
more than help me
in the sleeping department.
Your presence is like my two front teeth;
a little worn and chipped
from being around so long,
but a trivial part
of my smile.

And I know that your face goes all squinty
and you close your eyes
when you're laughing really hard,
and it makes my stomach do little flips,
and I laugh along with you
so you think that my smile is
only from the joke;
And I saw you looking at me
while I was reading my book with
a smile on my face,
and I saw you turn your gaze
when our eyes met as I brushed
some hair out of my eyes
so I could see you in my peripherals
just a little bit better.

But the best part of you
and me
is that I wrote this poem with no one in mind
and now
I will fall asleep with your name on my lips
and hidden inside the ink on the page.

are you for real?
why would you do this to yourself?
he’s not even real,
at least not that you know.
all he is is a combination
of letters and numbers,
zeros and ones
that you haven’t seen in the flesh.
but he likes you,
and nobody else does,
so why wouldn’t you jump at the chance?
because you’re lonely
and so is he
and he says that you’re
the most beautiful thing
he’s ever seen,
and no one has ever said that to you
in your entire life.

Raindrops on roses
and making men
bump their heads
to keep us
staring out of our windows
or stuck in our beds.

All it takes is one sweet smile,
an explosive laugh,
a nervous shove
of hands into denim pockets,
a pluck of a string,
a reach with the voice,
a bad joke,
a good choice in song,
and my stomach jumps
in feathering butterflies,
my heart leaps to my throat,
and my insides begin to warm.
I feel all of the good things
from within myself
rushing to conquer the bad,
and I allow it to happen,
simply because of him.

She pushes for me to live,
and she always has.
But it's hard to try and live
for someone who can't do it themselves,
and she doesn't want to.
Wrapping her lips around the filter end;
inhale,
exhale
cough cough
Oh how wonderful it is
to die.

And it's all I've ever known!
all I've ever seen,
but somehow, it is better
to end your life slowly
instead of all in one go.

I guess it's because
no one notices
when you slowly fade out,
but a whole bottle of Nyquil gone,
two lines on your wrists gashed--
it's too sudden.
Too much for your loved ones to handle.

But what about me?!
Watching the one who gave me life
take away her own without a second thought.
It makes you wonder about life's worth.
It made me wonder about mine
when the woman who made me
just threw hers away.
I really thought that suicide was the answer after a while,
because my mother could do it.

"But she's here, still alive."
But is she?
Am I?
She decided to **** herself when she was a teen,
and so did I,
but I backed out.
And she's been killing herself
for decades.

Although I wish they were,
Your eyes were not made
To drink in my presence
Like a kindergartner with a juice box.

Your hands were not created
To touch away the pain I feel
After a day that crashed around me
Has taken away my hope.

And even though ours fit together,
Your lips were not crafted
To press against mine
In a spur of the moment thought.

And you were not invented
To love me.

Days like these are the ones
where I am reminded
of just how human I am;
how fragile and vulnerable,
how soft and easily bruised.

And I tend to scar easier than others.

Just check the shallow scratches on my skin
that linger for weeks,
the marks on my ankles from old new shoes,
and anxiety from instances
years ago.

Trying to remind myself that
these times pass
(they always do),
but I just remember that
one day
I'll be ten feet under
the ground that I walk on
while I'm trying to forget.

Days like these remind me
of how real I am,
and I try to lock them into infinity
on sheets of paper with a pen
so I can live forever.

I fear that I am
soon nearing the end
in a place where I should
never have to pretend.
It's emptiness come where
there's happiness lost,
and from trying to please
I am feeling the cost.

It's a slow, deep breath in
and a labored one out
holding silence together
where there should be a shout;
a signal to say
that the pain's ripping through--
even if there was, there'd be nothing to do
but to sit by and observe
my God given fate
my emotions dissolve,
and health disintegrate.

So I sit and I stare
at the cuts on my wrist
wondering how long it took
just to come down to this.
Now my being is filled
with an empty black space,
a well practiced smile
grows large on my face.

So I fear that I am
soon reaching the end
in a place where I know nothing
but how to pretend.

I regret with all my heart
never holding your hand
and never admitting to you
how much you meant to me.
Because you were the warm touch
of sunlight during the winter
and the smile on my face after a long day,
and I let you slip through my fingers
more easily than I ever could have imagined.

You looked at me today
and I don't know if it was
on accident
or on purpose,
but I do hope it was on purpose,
because I looked back
and I smiled,
and I have only ever
done that for
you.

I spend so much time
wrapped up in thoughts of
what things are like in the real world,
that I forget that I am in it;
a living, breathing string
woven into the intricate fabric of today.
I have a reason & a purpose,
and each breath I take
is a step towards finding them.
Every moment of my life
is a part of my purpose.
I'd like to believe that me finding it
is a part of it.
But if it isn't,
what have I wasted?

I flutter my eyes open
in the hopes that something
will have changed,
but there is nothing new
and everything is dark
despite the early hour.

I stare up at my ceiling
and dream of new surroundings,
because mine are displeasing
and they make me feel
as if I am drowning
in a pool of nothing.

I pull myself out of bed
because I know that I cannot stay
wrapped up in my comforting sheets
for all of eternity.
Because even though I am afraid
there is a whole world of tomorrows.

I'm wondering how
much time it will take you to
just ******* kiss me.