what do you say in a traditional wedding toast?
I’m not a traditionalist
I’m a poet
I’m not too good at structured, sentimental texts
i speak in chopped verses so
here’s my non-traditional, non-structured, sentimental wedding toast
in verse

my memories
flash and fade quickly like lights flicker on and off
i'm toddling around the house right behind you
where are you going?
can i come too?

i'm barefoot in the driveway washing your car
you took pictures, no doubt laughing at the streaks we left on the windows because, shortness

i'm sitting on the bus rifling through your purse like the nosy little kid I am
you're chaperoning one of my school field trips
one of the aids asks if you're my mother
you chuckle and say "nope, i'm her sister"
i roll my eyes because isn't it obvious we're sisters?
okay, it wasn't obvious we're sisters

i'm bouncing down the hallway to your room
stopping suddenly at the sight of packing boxes
college
you're leaving me
"we'll be okay" you said
i believed you even though i could have sworn
i was losing my sister to the big city for good
we wrote letters
we skyped
we emailed
and i called you
so many times
we were okay

fifth grade, you bring a guy home
but not just any guy
i think we all knew this one was different
i saw it in your eyes
i was only 11 but i knew what love looked like

b, you always told me i was the wind beneath your wings
you can't break the bond of sisterhood
you just can't
but maybe the bonds will loosen
i thank you for the memories
they were fantastic and i'm looking forward to seeing what the future has in store for us
i'm thinking
babies would be nice
In time...

so my dear sister,
tell me how married life is
i hope this night was everything you always dreamed of

nick, you've got to be
the happiest guy in the world right now

i'm only 16 but i know what love looks like
it looks like his gaze on her glowing beauty
it looks like a promise of forevers proclaimed in front of loved ones
it looks like my sister
finding her other half
and my brother in law
finding his.

-rgp

the good poems
are constructed from fragments
of painful experiences
times when i felt numb and nothing
there's thought,
structure
or lack of anything entirely
the good poems
remind me of a time
that i can't really remember
i'm going back to this pain
because it's familiar
i remember what desolation looks like
i remember what silent screams ripped air in two and
my skin apart
the good poems tell of a time
where i was mentally so far gone
when i had a concrete concept of the darkness enfolding me but no concept of what scary was
the good poems aren't really good poems
there's just emotion there
i felt so much
and it hurt to touch
if i can somehow make sense of it all
rewrite my scars into fresh cuts again
remember the nullity i fell into
maybe i'll learn how to feel again
leave the past in the past and bury it with a hatchet
no need to dig up all the skeletons you once hid in your closet
you let chaos rest, why disturb it?
it never escapes you
i talk about past pains
like it's something i crave
what a foolish thing to want, to need
to thirst for to feel whole again
this pain
i think they call it growing pain
like the pain of physically shaking off an old skin that no longer fits
the skin i felt comfortable in and the skin i abused
so a new skin can grow
i miss the familiarity
and my limits
the good poems
weren't good at all
but in my head
they're good because
if i can fathom images of what trembling nights felt like
out of shaky breaths
that's better than when i can't
and if the only thing i ever write about for as long as i live is pain
then so be it
they say that you spend your whole life
rewriting the first poem you ever loved
perhaps
my definition of love
is synonymous with pain
perhaps pain
is synonymous with life
if that's true
then the good poems remind me of a time
when i was so so alive that i was on the brink
of death
-
-rgp

the moon
is a testament
to the idea that
something so heavy
and encircled by darkness
can still
bring
light.
-rgp

i’m lost
my legs are tired
and the concrete looks like a trampoline
if you throw something hard at an even harder surface, the something does not bounce
it breaks
if i throw my body to the concrete that looks like a trampoline
my bones will shatter
but my soul will only bruise
and that annoys me

because i thought death was easy
it’s this life that’s hard
what happens when escaping life becomes so difficult that death disappears from sight
when i thought death was easy but there’s no more fight left in me
when did trying to die become so difficult?

they tell me i’m not alone
which i find to be pretty funny because when my thoughts are falling out of my head too quickly for me to catch i’ll look around
and all i see is fragmented thoughts splintered on the ground

you have commitments
appointments
social obligations that consist of lifting others up
you have a job
and friends
and school
and papers to write
i know it’s hard for you sometimes, too

i know i drag you down
you say you won’t entertain the thought that my existence is a show put on by lucifer’s angels because i’m just
dramatic
you say
my idleness is the reason why my brain is wasting away
i’m the reason i’m wasting away
if it’s all in my head,
will the pain get better as i get worse?

they tell me
i’m here
and they’ll miss me if i go but when i tell them i’ve been trying to leave for years
they tell me no
i’ve been trying to stay for years
i laugh

they tell me
there’s so much more to live for
smiles and hugs and really dumb jokes
art and literature and art and art and art
and art

one thing art has taught me?
everything dies
everything ends
and humanity’s soul takes a beating every time we try
to erase the existence they’ve worked so hard to create
we could be frail
and throw ourselves to the pavement
the headlines the next morning would read Another one Bites the Dust or something

it’s really hard to be positive when you don’t want to be
or remember how to be
when stats of suicide are so frequently reported you wonder if that’s what you’ll become, another statistic
“the percentage of suicides of queer, korean adoptee, catholic, females has now risen to 1% this is Fox News reporting”
or something

i’ve heard that.

when did trying to die become so difficult?

-rgp

i am not bitter
i’m tired
of seeing headlines flood my timelines
worded similarly with a name substituted in as allegations break

i am not privileged
to be tired of seeing headlines flood my timelines
worded by way of another celebrity letting us down

i do not ignore
the bile headlines that sneak their way into my timelines
how can i?
but i am tired
of feeling let down

i am not blind
to the immense pain caused by a scream, silenced
but i am tired
of seeing the duct tape over her mouth

i wonder
if one day soon
i will no longer be bitter
or tired
of seeing headlines flood my timelines
worded by way of claiming
it was her fault

-rgp

her eyes are bloodshot and dried out
she hasn't blinked in hours
a screen flickers on and off
just as her mind floats in and out of consciousness

there's shadows on the ceilings
like ones she left behind in the city

she remembers a smile
and jolts upright in bed
there's a smile that haunts her

the sun rises in a couple hours
and she is still awake.

-rgp

my fears outrun me
while i stumble over air
i keep tripping over
what isn’t even there.
-rgp

i want to talk with someone
but i don't know how to say it
i want to talk just talk
not about specific life events or what i ate for dinner last night
please don't ask me about my family or my academics
ask me why my replies get short when you ask me how i am
tell me more than
well i'm glad you're still breathing
when that's my response to your short question
i know
that i can twist my words into appearing positive even when they're not
i know that my sarcasm doesn't always transcend beyond the computer's algorithms
i know that you don't know how to mitigate my suffering
and that's fine
really
it is
so we'll talk about you and your great life adventures
even though right now
i want to talk about the poem i just read by andrea gibson
i want to talk about my writing professor and her brilliant mind and how i've never been more motivated to get to class just so i could sit there and take in the simple grandeur
i want to talk about the night sky and i know it's overrated woohoo the stars and moon huzzah for the earth's night light but have you ever noticed
how when you stand out in the middle of the road at 2 am in the morning,
the world down here is silent and flat but up there, the galaxies stretch and bend beyond the eye can see, the stars are all placed so perfectly
hapharzardly scattered about but in the right places
sometimes they're so dim, you know?
i will never stop aweing over the miracle of the sky nor will i ever not stand in the middle of the road at 2 am in the morning on a rough night just to be reminded of the beauty that's still there within each and every one of us even though sometimes we can't see it
i want to talk about the dream i had last night
and the night before that and how i am scared to fall asleep because my mind is a ******* complex and ***** thing that can thread unimaginable hypotheticals through something that was supposed to be peaceful
i don't want to sleep
i want to talk
i want to talk with someone
because i'm tired of talking to myself
-
-rgp

if i were the drinking kind
i'd fill my body with enough poison i might slip into a deep slumber and not wake until the pain disappeared
my poison of choice
is music
melodies strung and sung so sweetly my heart aches until it numbs
when tears slither their way out of my dry, cracking face i try to convince myself i'm just rehydrating the dead cells that mask my tired bones
pay no attention to the hysterical grin, the Gucci bags under my eyes, and the hair that's wearing Thin and Matted like designer names on B-list celebrities
every night i cut the ambien into pieces, working my way up from halfsies to wholesies so i don't have to listen to the conversations i have with the walls in my room
it all hurts so ******* much, you know?
you don't numb this kind of pain expecting it to go away
you listen to it and coddle it and sit back as it consumes you because **** it looked so innocent
at first
when 10 am finally comes
hashbrowns with too much salt, a mug of cold tea, and a couple Prozac can remedy even the worst of depression's hangovers

sleep tight

don't let the bedbugs bite.

-
-rgp

here’s a lie to keep you living
a veil of truth to shade your eyes
what searing pains your body has endured
are illusions from your mind

it’s nothing big, it’ll be alright
you shout above the cacophony upstairs
my monsters have just come out to play
they do that, you know, in my nightmares

we dance an endless waltz with darkness
and convince ourselves we’re fine
so what if we haven’t seen the sun in months
we’re alive, we swear, we’re not dying

but what happens when we stop showing up?
are we still here, or no?
does anybody miss us
or stop to ask “where did they go?”

will they notice the lack of color
will they miss our favorite songs?
will they wonder how we lived
with all of this darkness for so long?

nah, they won’t notice
it’s all an illusion anyway
at least that’s what the doctor said
that, and $150 for your stay

-rgp

vagrant lives she leads with fear
uncertainty tugs at her feet
at least, that’s what she thinks
the road calls her home
begs her to kick off her boots
and caress its trails with bare soles and a bare soul
the skies notes she hasn’t been around for months
that the sun missed her morning kisses
and the stars missed her guidance
and the moon missed her dancing
these days she’s as lost as the lives she’s supposedly guiding
trying to get them both up to a safe place again
so their souls can sing the songs their bodies once knew by memory
so her heart can start beating again

-rgp

i think you hurt me
and i think,
at the time at least
i liked it.

i liked that someone listened to me
that should’ve been the first red flag
no one listens to me
i mean no one like you listens to me.

and i didn’t think it odd or inappropriate
i’m gay,
i told you
i didn’t think you were a threat
and that should’ve been the second.

i didn’t think it was weird
when you asked me for selfies
because people swap selfies, right?
i’ve sent some pretty hideous double chinned bedhead dead eyed selfies to my girlfriend
how is it any different if it’s to a guy friend?

except it was different
you asked to see my thigh gap
my feet
my lordotic back because you wanted to see how my muscular dystrophy affected me
physically.
that should’ve been the third.

you called me pet names.
you told me you loved me.
you said you would always be there for me when no one else was.
fourth. fifth. sixth.

at first i thought it endearing and a platonic kind of love.
but you don’t say those things to a girl you met on the internet
i don’t.

i struggle saying those three words.
they weigh me down and make me choke on air when i try to say them out loud
so when you insisted i say them back, that you wouldn’t stop bugging me until i did,
i panicked
typed them, hit “send”
and cried later
and you told me it’s no big deal, everyone says “i love you”
not me. never me.
seventh flag.

you told me you’d visit
you told me we were meant to be
like a ****** up romeo and juliet
you spent your nights talking me down off of suicidal ledges
you thought you saved me
you kept telling me to just ******* eat, that starving myself was stupid, that you couldn’t have me die on you, that you were supposed to die first
“death is not a race,” i said
“you’ll win anyway if i don’t save you,” you replied
eighth flag.
i didn’t like it anymore.

i think you hurt me.
i can’t be too sure since you’ve convinced me you were just being friendly but i’m starting to come out of this fog you’ve put me in
and i do believe
you’ve hurt me.

-rgp

i was planted in rocky soil
and raised by lies
i found a saviour in alternative music
and a god i could relate to in poetry

i don’t remember when
the world spun upside down
but i’ve been walking backwards on the celling ever since

the sun doesn’t rise here
it only sets
and when the stars come out to play
i like that i’m staring into the eyes of death

i guess my head was never ******* on right
maybe that’s the point
i hardly ever know what i’m doing
but **** that

-rgp

if you’ve ever gone through withdrawal,
you know that the awful part is not in the obvious shakes and pains
but in the facts that state how it was so that you got to this point
and the fact that your once saviour can’t save you anymore

the awful part is in the shame that follows—-
don’t ******* shame me for medicating my mind
or making decisions that provide me some temporary bliss,
some temporary ease,
some temporary it-doesn’t-*******-hurt-so-much
i know what i “got myself into”
i also “got myself out”
and i’d willingly go back

it’s silent at night
and then it’s not
it’s like someone is having a house party two feet away and the thermostat has been repossessed by a pixie and one second you’re fine but then the next it feels like you are quite literally shedding your skin

but that’s not the awful part.

you’re right in that the come down is just absolutely awful
but if i had the chance to do it over,
i’d still pick this.

-rgp

i am apathetic.
which is funny, for an empath
to go from feeling too much
to feeling nothing
what stress caused the strings to break within me?
what bitterness and hatred caused a sudden lack of feeling?
oh
chronic depression
you’re back.
****.
-rgp