sometimes
my life feels like
it is reduced to the sum
of the plates i'm spinning.

sometimes
talking to You feels like
leaving a message on an answering machine
how do i know You can hear me?
call me selfish,
but i wish i could see Your face

i miss the days when
i was content with what we shared
when i had hope we could be more
but didn't want it

i miss the days when
your smile, i thought, could be for me
when we were simpler
and feelings easier

i miss the days when
we were younger and closer
when i knew you better
when i knew me better

but you feel different, and not quite so close
and i want more
and oh, i wish i didn't
because when it was just you and me,
i was content

the lights of your eyes
brown-gold-copper, like an
oncoming sunset
i would know them anywhere.

i'm drawn to your eyes;
your eyes of kindness
of consideration
of the way they crinkle
when you smile;
you always think of others.
do you remember to think of yourself?

your eyes
they're soft.
i'm safe when i look at you.
i'm safe when your eyes meet mine.
i know your eyes;
i know you.

your eyes
are my favorite eyes
because
they are your soul.

gentle
is a word that could
describe me.
maybe if you knew me.

but do not take
my quiet voice
my soft eyes
my drifting hair
my light fingertips

for weakness.

i hope one day your teeth drip with
the taste of your own cruelty

one day you choke
on the fog of your own anger

i hope one day your fingers dangle
slick with pain and regret

regret

i hope one day you r e g r e t

i see you every morning.
you always sit in the same spot.
i always sit in the same spot -
next to you.

when you smile at me,
i don't feel something
sour with nervousness
grip my heart
like i did
before i had met you
and i loved others.

when you smile at me,
it's something familiar.
no one smiles like you do.
no one smiles at me like you do.

one time,
we were swapping songs,
sharing earbuds.
at the time,
i was in love with this one song;
i played it over three times
before you laughed,
and asked me if i knew
a certain song.
i said no, too focused
on my science homework
to see your face.
(i wish i had seen it,
just to know what you were thinking
and just because i love
the way you smile at me.)
you played me three songs-
three songs i hadn't heard before.
each one
was
a love song

and i couldn't help
but wonder
if that was
your love song for me.

i search out
glimpses of you,
passing moments,
stills of a life
in which you always smile at me

dear,

i forgive you
for the stakes you drove into my chest
for the afternoons of raised voices
for the tears i couldn't stop

i forgive you
for never showing me what a soft hand looks like
for never guiding me through the stormy seas of my own emotions
for never comforting me like i longed to be
(for never holding me when i cried)

i forgive you
for giving me the words i wielded
against myself in the privacy of my solitude
for teaching me promises are meant to be broken
for making me think my own memory was failing me

i forgive you
for letting me trust you
for telling me to trust you
for breaking my heart

i forgive you
because it's finally stopped hurting
to do so

we both like hugs and cats
we're pretty much the same person!
she makes my mornings so much easier,
this friend of mine.

last year,
i didn't know her very well.
(i didn't know anyone very well;
a new school district, if you will.)
but she's the loud to my quiet
the pretty to my clumsy
and the fight to my meekness,
this friend of mine.

this year,
we hold hands,
and hug,
and laugh,
and i'm very glad to have her,
this friend of mine.

it's one am
i'm still thinking of you
my bones have so many words
but not enough letters

your fingers twine with mine
two sources of warmth,
one bright
one tired
both touching the other,
red and blue light make
the prettiest of twilight purples

steady, solid,
you're still here
you've stayed,
you don't know
how much that scares me
because no one else has
the same way you have

i'm still drawn to your smile
i'm still a flower to your sunlight
i'm still yours to hold
so please, please hold me

do you remember
the pictures of flowers
we drew in english class?

you probably don't.

i do.

i poured
my heart and my soul
into that flower,
that one little,
hastily-drawn
flower;
perched
on the edge of
a cliff,
wavering and unsteady,
framed by an open sky,
filled with smudged pencil marks
i was that flower

later,
when we each wrote
a few sentences about those flowers
you were the only person
to write about mine.
i wish i knew what you said
i wish i knew what you thought
of my little flower
fragile and unbalanced
on the precipice of a life
it didn't know it could have.

i am a little flower
i crave your touch
please, string together sentences
of words
of thoughts
what do you think of me?
my petals quiver,
my stem wilts,
my rools curls,

but i stay.

i cling
to my cliff of
pencil and white paper
and you stand and
peer into my world
my world of new things
my week-old world

i am a young flower
ready to bloom
ready to explore
this undeveloped world,
please, won't you
write me your words?
what do you think
of my week-old world?

raindrops crown your face
a wreath to your purity
your smile is enough
to make me forget even the
sun, hiding behind clouds

i'm caught in the riptide
that swirls beneath the tug of your lips
behind the timbre of your voice
you have me,
even if you do not know it

...
.....
...

i hope you're happy with her,
i hope her hands fit perfectly in yours
i hope it's everything you ever dreamed it to be,
i hope her smile makes your dreams come true, i
hope, i
hope, i
hope
that every cliché i see
when i think of you,
you can find in her

sometimes
in the darkest moments
of the darkest nights,
i forget You can hear me.

sometimes
in the brightest moments
of the brightest days
i forget i need You.

i forget the feel of your voice
i forget how it slipped
into the ridged fingerprint
of my soul.
i forget the whisper of your love
i forget how it sounded
when You spoke the truth
and i ignored it.

i forget that
all the static
of my failures
should not overcome
the melody of Your Spirit.
i forget how to listen
and believe
because i am so used to lying to myself
that the truth seems impossible;
just out of my undeserving reach.

oh Lord, i am undeserving
my hands have dirt and filth and blood
caked under the fingernails
and painted in the creases of my palms.
my skin is tainted. i am not whole.
but i am also undeserving
of the things i have whispered
to myself
in the shadows of my depression.

You tell me things that i don't think
i need to hear.
for years, i've refused.
i've so foolishly claimed
my own wisdom.
i am not wise.
i am not deserving.

But i am Yours.

is it a lie
if when you said it,
you thought it was true?

freckles are sweet constellations
dying chocolate stars
on a universe of cream

i wish i could
touch the dying stars
and lose myself
in the universe of your face.

it squeezes
the meaty flesh
between my lungs.

that *****
that tissue
those cells
electric with these
waves of nervousness
wrapping their tendrils
and gripping, too tightly.

is it nervousness?
when i am nervous,
i know what to do with it.
i know how to use it.
this is not nervousness.

anxiety took root in my heart
years ago
and it still clutches
at the space where i
imagine my soul to be.

do you ever
mourn the stories you deleted
or the words you cast away?
do you ever
long for the worlds you created
and threw aside foolishly?
do you ever
miss the way you strung together sentences
before your world tilted?
do you want again
to read the paragraphs you once crafted?
do you regret emptying your recycle bin
until you had nothing left except
all the words you would write in the future?

the problem is
we decided beautiful is good.
beautiful is pure.
beautiful is normal.
we chose not to see
the beauty in a man's last breath
after he's been shot three times.
we chose not to see the beauty
in the death of a garden.
we chose not to see the beauty
in manipulative phrases.
we chose not to see the beauty
in the things that harm us,
when in fact beauty
can be as deadly and objective
as a knife, loosely grasped in someone's hand.

sleep tugs at heavy limbs.
sleep tugs at heavy eyes.
sleep tugs at heavy minds.
sleep tugs at heavy hearts.
sleep calls, and you answer.

you have no idea.
it's funny to me
how you have no idea.

i've spent exactly five hundred and ninety-nine days
denying any semblance of romantic notions.
i've spent exactly one year, seven months, three weeks, and a day
with a fragment of my soul
in love with you.

five hundred and ninety-nine days ago,
i had no idea.
(much like how you have no idea, even now)
i didn't even think
i just knew-
i wanted to know you.
i wanted to be your friend.
i wanted to be near you.
a crush never occurred to me!
but that fragment of my soul;
something tells me it knew this whole time.
it knew and it wanted to reach out to you.
so i've followed you
i've sought you out from crowds
(not really knowing that i was searching
for you, specifically)
this whole time.

maybe i should clarify but
when i speak of denial
i speak of mine.
i spent these eighty-one weeks and a day
telling myself i only wanted to be your friend.
there was simply no way, in my mind
that i wanted to hold you
kiss you
love you.

i still don't want to kiss you.
not right now.
but i would love to lean into your side,
and curl an arm around your waist
and hide my face in your neck.

my fingertips are always cold.
when I press them
to my face
or tuck them
under my chin
they are chips of ice.
the warmth feels good,
and i can breathe again.

growth is charcoal-smudged fingers
and the rustle of papers

growth is smiles with a little less pain
but also a little less innocence

growth is stopping to gaze up at the stars
when it's three am and the whole world is asleep

growth is breaking and healing and breaking
the shards of your thoughts cupped gently in your shaking hands

growth is accepting distance
and demanding closeness

growth is forgiveness,
and growth is pain,
and growth is hope,
but growth is always
good

it's 6:45 in the morning
     and you wish you could remember his name.

Marker stains like bloodied knuckles
Red ink blooming on purple skin
False pain, seen but not felt
Beautiful, twisted
I wanted to feel it.

Those stray marks were so inconsequential,
But they captivated me
For the rest of the day.
They were so beautiful, and they looked real.
I wanted them to be real.

The tip of the pen dragged
Across a pale canvas
And constellations of angry red scratches.
My fingers dug into soft flesh
Nails sharp, skin dry.
That pain I felt.
That pain I controlled.

(I never made myself bleed
Part of me was proud
But a small part of me,
The part fascinated by the beauty of a broken body
Wanted to see blood,
My blood,
Beading on a pale canvas.)

A mess of bruises
Sprawling the territory of my right wrist,
Born of the moments
I hated myself most.
Flashes of anger birthed
A pain I felt.
A pain I controlled.

I still remember the days
When the scars on my skin
Could be erased.
When I painted my body with false wounds
Haphazard and messily beautiful
Like a classroom art project began at three AM.

Like pastels smeared beyond recognition,
I did not see myself
In the curves of my wrists
In the folds of my skin
In the ***** of my neck
Or in the line of my back.

I did not see myself
In the kid who cried easily
Who broke easily
Who crumbled at a raised voice
Who felt the very things they hated.

I did not see myself
In the anger
Or the hatred
Or the lies.

So I took the false pain,
The classroom art project of my body
The watercolor bruises
And the marker-ink scrapes
And I made them real.

I did not see myself
So I took my beautiful art project
My creativity, my life's work
And I blinded myself with pain
So I could not see at all.

when i bare my neck at you
i'm not trusting you to not hurt me
i'm trusting you to protect me
from those who might

i have so many words
bubbling under my skin
pulling at my soul
begging, pleading to be released
"i'm trying," i cry
"please be patient with me," i am but small
but they do not care.
they eat away at me,
and my soul is heavy with the words
i do not yet know
how to set free.