I chased my demons
as if I was a kid again
chasing my friends around the playground

but this time,
I just couldn't catch up.

i guess i got mad
when i looked at all the kids around me
and the huge learning gap
you were either ghetto or International Baccalaureate or somewhere in between
and being in the middle kind of ******

watching sketchy drug deals in thin hallways with white brick walls
and watching kids who have parents who buy them 2012 cars
and pay for their gas swerve around in the parking lot
kind of ******

i can't complain
because i didn't grow up in the streets
i grew up in a ranch house
in a neighborhood full of old white people
i can't complain
because i'm entering the 'real world' faster by having to buy my own car
and pay my way through college
and buy an apartment
but
it kind of *****

I skipped the second half of school,
went home and grabbed a shovel.
As I was digging a hole big enough to bury my problems,
my friend texted me, said
Just watch two episodes of a show on Netflix,
then see how you feel afterwards.
Let me know if you feel any better.

I didn't text her back,
didn't tell her that 81 minutes of Beavis and Butthead
didn't quite do the job.
I didn't tell her that I googled "How to Love Yourself"
and I definitely didn't tell her that out of the 24 steps on WikiHow,
only one could save me.
Step number 5 was "Forgive yourself."
My first thought was,
How are you going to make that number 5?
23 other steps to being a passionate person who is truly grateful
do not compare to
forgiving yourself.
That's the hardest part.
My second thought was how.
How can I forgive myself,
when my dog greets me every morning
with bright eyes and puppy kisses
and I tell him to go away
and I push him off my lap
because he's taking up too much time?
How can I forgive myself
when step number 3 suggests keeping a diary,
and my first reaction is to look down at my legs because
my thighs are enough of a diary as it is.
These scars tell people more sad stories about me than they’d ever need to know.

Beavis and Butthead didn't do the job because there is no job
there's only volunteer work and benefits to claim.

My uncle doesn't like my family.
Every call is a short click then a long black silence reminding me of the sea at night, just not as beautiful.

My aunt pretends not to notice,
So now her car is an ashtray and she works a lot.
Public displays of affection sans hand holding and soft kisses,
The cracks in her bottom lip could **** a man.

My aunt is strong, like a grandparent's house that I remember being pushed down the stairs in.

My uncle doesn't like my aunt's parents,
The grumpy Italian man with depression and aching knees and
The sweet little woman with short gray hair who doesn't remember me anymore.
"Who are all these children?", she whispers to my mother.

My aunt pretends not to notice,
And she is strong, she is strong, she is strong,
But I think she is losing herself to the ocean,
And it's not as beautiful as it sounds.

Sometimes, I forget about the other you.
He slips through the gaps between your teeth,
and his voice creaks from your throat,
the same way my feet creak down
the wooden stairs
in the early
cracks of dawn.

His fingerprints become yours,
and it doesn't hurt anymore.

i reached into myself today
tried to hide in music with short titles and short stories
only ate candy and sat on my bed criss cross apple sauce with a blanket only over my right knee
thought about learning the fiddle, or the saxophone
it's too hard to get up and get motivated when i'm skipping my classes every chance i get

Moths that look like little girls hair bows,
I squashed you underneath that binder I used in high school band class.
It was you or me.

i apologized
with old pencils i found in the bottom of my bookbag
with the erasers missing
so i couldn't take it back

i guess i thought that i could learn how to drink away this lump in my throat

movies always taught me that when i turned 18, i would start shedding my skin and breaking down my walls but i didn't have any walls to tear down.
so i tried my hardest at age 18 to build them up, with the only things i had - boxes of matches
left over from burning down so many bridges

all because of some pieces of twisted metal,
i had to reteach myself how to drive.
and now i'm always 5 under the speed limit
i stop at every stop sign
no matter how angry i get

no one ever told me whether or not boxes of matches float
or why my neighborhood always looked so dark
and made me curl up like a dead spider

so now i stick my head in the freezer,
so i can get used to the feeling of my thoughts being so cold

now i kiss people just so we don't have to talk.

This is a love poem.
This is a poem for the girl I haven't met yet,
with the long brown hair
and the eyes that always look down.

This is a poem for the girl who thinks this is about her,
and this is a poem for the girl who thinks this is about her.

And it is about you.
It's about your eyes,
and how they don't blink sixty times a minute and
I'm jealous of that,
because you don't have to deal with time passing by as quickly as I do.
And sure, you have a kaleidoscope heart, but
you also have a honeysuckle smile.
And sure, a lot of the time, you see the bad -
but that doesn't mean you can't see the good, either.

I want you to twist my skin between your hands, like an Indian rug burn,
and change me,
because we both know that it isn't as hard as we pretend it to be.
Always look forward,
and adjust me with your fingertips until I'm whatever color you want me to be,
because I'll change for you.

I don’t trust you
the same way I don’t trust the towels
in hotel bathrooms

But if I could stop time,
I would cut all the strings
So you could pick yourself up
And move forward

You are beautiful
In the way that makes babies
Slowly stop speaking the unexplored
And stare with eyes too big
And too wide

But you are sad
In the way that makes people
Slowly stop speaking the explored
And stare with eyes too big
And too wide

pick my brain and blame me
blame me

do not tell me anything
because i will overthink it
to the point where i think i took a breath at the wrong time

i am the worst nightmare
of every child who has parents that fight in front of them
i smell like campfire smoke and regret
dark basements with tiny bathrooms
full of regret

i am night
i am night
i am the past coming back to haunt you i am
broken fingernails and pulled hair and i am
searching
waiting
i am waiting for you to be alone so i can
pick your brains and i am
god i am god
i am god

There are flowers
Drawn in the side of your face
With scars
And that pastel chalk that always finds ways to stain your fingers.
The dust in your palms is hard to wash off and
I'm sorry that the cracks in this sidewalk found their way
Into your heart
But dandelions still manage to slip through the concrete.
Your touch reminds me of stained glass and the feeling you get right before you fall asleep when the universe is at peace with itself.

i'm not trying to achieve enlightenment i just want to know why it hurts so bad when i make eye contact with you
it doesn't hurt
it winds my stomach up like a yo-yo
and drops it to the ground without thinking twice
the way you blink makes me hurt
hurt
hur
t
this isn't fair it's not fair i have goals and you don't
i'm not skipping classes anymore i'm not
skipping

lines
anymore
i can't i can't
it isn't fair
i can't

I AM NOT THE ******* SUN
I AM
broken glass on sidewalks where kids play
i am
****** up puzzle pieces where the picture is splitting from the cardboard back
i am
white socks with black bottoms because of all the ******* i've been put through
i am
sa
d
i am sad
i am sad
but i don't want to be
i'm sick of being thrown away
i am not past any expiration date
i am not just some ******* KID
who wants to hold your hand
just because you feel bad for me
and that i like you
god ****** god ****** god ******
i'm not going to ******* sit here
and be treated like absolute ****
just because i like someone
just because
i want to be in a relationship i want to be in love
but at the same time,
i don't believe in love anymore and that hurts me more than any gun could
god,
it hurts me more than anything could

never
ever
ever
give anybody
a kiss goodbye
because they will cut open your chest
and dismantle your heartstrings
and take them from you

they will play crossword puzzles with your veins.

i am trying my hardest
to throw away my feelings for you
but they are sticking to my feet like mud
caking the sides of my new white shoes

This
Is the first time you got
Dirt
Under your fingernails
This is
The first time your dad
Didn't come home
This is the first time
Your little sister got
Drunk
And told you about her
Nightmares
This is the first time you stood
On the top of a mountain and
Screamed
At everything
That ever wasn't anything
This is the first time you stepped out of your pants
And into another person's
Body
This is the first time.
Maybe all of your parents' fighting was just a test.
Whether you passed or not depends on how
Late
You went to bed, listening
Or how
Empty
The palms of your hands looked when you
Held them against hers because
You were taught that you should
Hold it all.
Music is hard to dance to when you've been
Taught to stuff your
Fingers so far into your
Ears that you can't even feel
Your own heartbeat.

You were taught to hate the color yellow and have two left feet.

i am glad
that i can pick off my skin
bit by bit
irk by irk and pleasure by pleasure and
feeling by feeling
and bit
by
bit
i am glad that sunburns don't hurt as much as they used to
and i'm glad that i don't have to tiptoe anymore

echos bounce off of the
brown wooden walls
in this room;
i am stuck.
a constant ringing -
reminder of a time
that once was.
i survive through
dates carved on
bridges in front of
waterfalls.
you avoid eye contact -
and i notice.
we are swastikas
and *** leaves
drawn in permanent marker
on the
insides of
desks.
we are phone numbers
scrawled on
bathroom walls -
do not call me for a good time.
we are cigarette burns -
               on purpose.

Day 126:

I can't keep up with the length of your hair. I can't remember if we shook our right hands or our left. I still haven't fixed the collar on your shirt because I hung it up in the back of my closet.

Day 127:

The smell of you is fading from me, faster than that sand slipping through my fingers when we went to the beach for the Fourth of July. You walked away without a sunburn.

I couldn't help but let my mind wander,
And amongst the tall trees and broken shade,
My bare feet stumbled upon the place
Where you decided to grit your teeth and become something else,
Someone else.
I wish I could have been there when your skin thickened and your tongue bled.

I wish I could have been there when you learned a new language
And decided to only speak in tongues that even you couldn't understand.
I couldn't tell you things anymore;
I couldn't tell you about rich people who spend their money to help the poor,
And I couldn't tell you that sometimes,
Your parents fight in front of you and you think that its all your fault but its not, and you're okay.
You're okay.
I could only tell you that your fingers felt like needles against my skin,
And that it hurt when your pressed your lips against the tiny tears on my shoulders
And down my back.

I think you got angry,
When my eyebrows furrowed, trying to understand.
You were frustrated because I couldn't roll my tongue or my 'r's.
You were mad,
Because our eyes were different shapes and my top lip was paler than my bottom.
Maybe my nose was too crooked, maybe the lines in the face made me look tired.

You broke me into a hundred pieces,
Because with every ******,
You claimed you were my savior.

i have found my words again
31 miles from you, half asleep
drunk words of encouragement - you are everything between stuck zippers and pulled hair

thank you thank you thank you
you are fuzzy belly rubs and
unraveling spines
i am
picked scabs and
hard play-dough but
whatever we have right now is
my favorite flavor of
ice cream at
the pier in Illinois
where my mom grew up
thank you
thank you thank you thank you
my phone capitalizes the first letter at the beginning of every sentence
just like my brain capitalizes my first impression of everything
it was good
thank you thank you thank you

God ******, Molly
God ******
I sailed out to sea with you because
You were afraid of exploring the world alone
And that
Is when I learned that I couldn't swim
And you let me drown

I don't know how much guilt you've felt in the last year but
It was pretty ******* ****** sitting at the bottom of the ocean
Waiting and hoping that you would save me

Of course you didn't.

I still don't know if I've been saved because sometimes the bubbles that come out of my mouth only float up.

My language is a dance. When I am excited, the tempo speeds up into a tango; characterized by marked rhythms and postures and abrupt pauses. I am small, but my voice is loud. I will not slump my shoulders, but I will take three steps forward, and no steps back. I will be in your face and I will pronounce my words with my history and I will say "soda" instead of "pop". I will make you hear me.
I speak to myself quietly and talk about pink satin sheets when I'm just trying to talk about the way I feel when I see him walking with her. My feelings are not words, they are colors. I will throw rocks through my own windows just by talking about myself. My language is sliding my test paper a little further past my arm when I can tell that you need help. I will help. My language consists of eye contact and tiptoeing around the question. I spend a lot of my time cursing the name of God in front of Catholics, but I do not mean to. My language is how I was raised, following angry parents through hallways and repeating words that should not have been repeated. I stumble and trip over my words like tree roots when I read out loud to the class. My language is not unique because I trace my words over everything that has ever been said around me. When I'm sad, my language is a slow dance in a burning room because I'm repeating everything bad I've ever said about myself, I'm repeating everything bad I've ever said about myself. My language is my environment; it is not unique, it is just there. My catch phrases are built on bruises caused by being shoved into lockers, but this is not sixth grade anymore. People are not "*******"; they are human, and I am sorry. Language is built upon every bad thing that has ever happened, and every reaction to it.

You pull on my heartstrings
faster
than little kids
pull on fraying string

I'm beginning to think I have a problem.
An obsession.

You see, I've fallen in love with an item,
an object.

I'm in love with
glow in the dark
plastic
stars.

You see,
I have bunkbeds
So I put them on the bottom of the top bunk
and I put them on the ceiling,
so that I always have something to look up to.

While I'm at it, I should probably tie a string to a stick
and hang it in front of me;
tie a star to the end of the string
so that I always have something to look forward to.

I'd rather sit in silence and swallow the lump of feelings in my throat than mention that you're 4 and a half hours late and this is my only day off in the past 2 months

you are
frustration because i
always want the last word but
i don't
i want to leave you hanging there
i want you
around my finger
wrapped
around my thumb
hanging
waiting
why aren't you here
wait
i am drowning in these ****** feelings
why can't you just
talk

T
U
P
I
D
For it is the same every time; trapped in my mind with all fours on the ground, ***** to the wall,
I'm sorry I can't handle touching and feeling the way children can.

You said we were like the Sun and the Moon.
And I agreed, as long as I got to be the Moon
But soon I realized that,
with you as the Sun,
I didn't get to see you too often.
I got sick of your company only becoming
time spent passing each other throughout the day.
I got tired of other people falling in love with how beautiful you were;
I was young,
jealous.
People never fell in love with me.

I am ******.
The hum of the car competes for my attention
With the half volume playlist that I made for you
But you are not here.

Sand sticks to my feet and legs,
But I don't think he knows that.
The back of my calves rub against the cloth seats in the back of his car,
And I feel guilty.

I am sorry that I
           pulled
                      and
                            pulled
u­ntil it hurt to move your feet apart anything more than six inches

I am sorry that I pulled you in
only to push you away
and leave you
with a knot in your stomach the size of
                                                                ­           canada
I did not mean to pull your stitches out and
open a glass case full of ghosts and
leave the sugar crystals stuck between your teeth I am
not who you thought I was I am
moonshine
under
moon shine and I am
a trigger warning I am a
trigger warning
trigger
warning
Don't forget about me

I am calmer
when I do not wear
time
on my wrist.

The seconds do not tick past my skin,
like they do when I wear a watch.

I have enough time to become the waves of the ocean;
rays of warm sun against backs sitting on hills with friends.
I have enough time to learn how to love people,
and love myself.

I am limiting myself. We are limiting each other.
We do not have time to sit around
and calm down
because we're always pushing ourselves to the next spot.
Place.
Time.

Wait! Stop!
Don't let it slip from your fingers
because you have it,

you really do.

Close your eyes and don't forget,
let the memories wash over you like a hot shower;
feel clean.
Feel beautiful,
because that's what you are.

That's what we all are.

Never forget that you have ten fingers,
and ten toes,
and no one can take that away from you.

Stop being afraid of who is behind you,
because in front of you - there are birds.
There are layers,
and tree branches, begging to be climbed.
Don't stress out when your tea gets cold because you can always make more.

I'm allergic to cats but that won't stop me from touching noses with kittens,
I'm afraid of my past but that isn't going to hold me back anymore.

I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I am the rock in your shoe.

I had beautiful words, once.
But,
I used them and used them
and they started to bump into eachother
and get rough
around the edges.
My words began to fray
and when they started to disappear,
so did you.

You were beautiful, once.
I don't know if you are anymore,
but our last moments are old,
and I've replayed them in my mind
over and over
and they're starting to get rough
around the edges.

I'm second guessing everything so that it doesn't hurt as much.
I didn't like it when you traced my collarbones with your lips,
I didn't like it when you pressed your palms against the inside of my thighs
and wrapped your fingers around my skin
and leaned in to kiss me
as delicately and passionately as you could.
I hated it.


Your mouth always tasted like chewing tobacco.